Into Battle

by Michael Gilbert

  “They’re fishermen and smugglers, and if I wasn’t being polite, I’d say pirates. And you know how it is with neighbours, spend all their time quarrelling. Seems there was some dispute about fishing rights, which ended in a fight. One killed on each side. It evened out. Now, if they meet, they don’t talk. They just spit at each other.”

  “And which side are you on?”

  “Oh, I’m a Doonyer. And I’m in good with their head man. Grandpère, I call him. It’s a name something like that. He’s got a beard down to his waist and he’s lost one arm, which gives him a sort of fellow feeling with me. He owns most of the fishing boats and the only pub in the place. It was through him I picked up Pepin. Though, actually, he’s an Easyite, not a Doonyer.”

  Joe’s ability to make unlikely friends had always impressed Luke. He said, “Tell me about Pepin.”

  “He’s a monkey. A monkey in human shape.”

  “A French boy?”

  “A youngster, I’d call him. Not a boy. He’s from Alsace, and he don’t like the Germans. He hates them. On account of what happened to his father. He was foreman of a gang of workers in one of the coal mines. When the Germans took over he refused to work for them, so they shot him. After which Pepin removed himself with his mother and came across here. One of his relations is in the Easy fishery crowd, so he soon made himself useful: mending nets, fishing for bait, repairing tackle, you name it.”

  “Sounds a useful sort of chap.”

  “You’re all of that, aren’t you, Pepin?”

  A voice close behind him said, “Pleezeter meecher.”

  Luke spun around and saw a brown face looking at him from the middle of a bush.

  “I taught him to say that,” said Joe. “At the moment, it’s about all the English he does know, but he seems to understand my French – that is, if I go slowly. He pointed at Luke and said, “Mon amee.”

  “Ah, si, votre copain, dont vous m’avez parlé. Sans doute un brave garçon.” The face-splitting grin with which Pepin accompanied this seemed to cast some doubt on the total sincerity of the compliment.

  “One thing he can do,” said Joe, “as you may have noticed, is slip in anywhere without calling undue attention to himself. That way he picks up useful odds and ends, one of which I’ll pass on to you at once. Seems that the Easy crowd are in with certain villains up your end of the town. See what it means? It’s a nice little back door if they need it. A boat trip down the coast to Spain. Once they’re there they’d be safe enough.”

  Luke nodded. He knew about Spain’s odd notion of neutrality.

  “But there’s a snag: The Easy boss is a smooth character called Moulin. That’s the French for mill.”

  “Yes,” said Luke patiently.

  “Well, old man Mill isn’t in the job for peanuts. He’s got a scale of charges. To go down to Spain would cost you five hundred Jimmies, or whatever that comes to in francs, or marks, or dollars, for that matter. He’s an all-around financier.”

  “Five hundred pounds,” said Luke thoughtfully. “How’s a runaway going to get hold of that sort of money?”

  “One way would be by selling booze, wouldn’t it? Great market here for booze. Pepin told me that one of his Easy friends told him that liquor was leaking out of the Q stores like water out of a sieve.”

  Pepin, who seemed to have understood that drink was being discussed, smacked his lips.

  Luke said, half to himself, something that sounded like “Puppy Yapp,” and aloud, “Yes. Thank you. I’ll be looking into that. And for all the other information.”

  He was not as interested in the fishermen and their feuds or the leakage of liquor as in the possibilities of Pepin. An assistant who could manoeuvre inconspicuously was something he had been looking for since he arrived at Le Touquet.

  It was a pleasant thought to balance the unpleasant ones.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Major General Eustace Foxley was feeling pleased with life. He was strolling along the southern bank of the Canche, heading for the colonial-type mansion that served him as a personal residence.

  One of the reasons for his complacency was the three fine speckled trout in his landing net. The purple queen lure, which he had tied the evening before, had justified the time and trouble he had spent in its construction. Also, the sun was shining. And his troublesome charges were, for once, behaving themselves.

  Credit for this must go to Colonel Harper and his C.M.P.s. He did not like the colonel but hoped that he was broadminded enough to appreciate a professional job, adequately carried out.

  At first, he failed to recognise the young man who was walking toward him. He was dressed as casually as the colonel himself. Flannel trousers and an open-necked shirt. A soldier or a policeman off duty? Yes. A policeman, he thought, as the man came closer. Hadn’t Harper introduced him when he arrived? An odd name. Pagan. Good, he had remembered it. Captain Luke Pagan. Absurdly young and naïve-looking for a C.M.P. None of that hard-bitten look he associated with policemen. Tiresome fellows most of them.

  This one unloosed a charming smile on the general as he bade him good morning and congratulated him on his catch.

  “Fine fellows, are they not?” said the general. “You must be the latest addition to Dan Harper’s crowd. If you have the time, perhaps you’d walk back with me. I’d like to hear the latest news from Sing-Sing.”

  Luke turned around willingly and fell in beside the general. At this point, the track swung away from the river, and they were crossing the frontage of the German compound. It was not nearly such an elaborate affair as the detention camp. A single strand of barbed wire seemed more to delineate the area than to keep the prisoners in. Having sidestepped the war, they had little incentive to escape back to it. Well-fed and organised by their own NCOs, they served as a useful, unpaid labour corps that, in return for extra rations, did most of the routine work in the four big Q stores. The ones who were sitting or lying closest to the wire rose politely to their feet as the general passed.

  “Good men,” he said, “and clever craftsmen. If you’ve a moment I’ll show you something they made for me.”

  He led the way into the hall and through it to the room at the back, which was lined with books.

  “My study,” said the general. “Not my books, of course.” He took down from a shelf a model of a frigate under full sail. The detail was meticulous.

  “It’s lovely,” said Luke. “It must have taken no end of time and trouble.”

  “I’m sure it did. But when all’s said and done they haven’t much else to do in their spare time. Yes, what is it?”

  An orderly had appeared at the door. “It’s Major Porteous, sir. He’d like a word with you.”

  “Show him in,” said the general, adding, with a smile, “As you see, I’m not allowed a lot of spare time myself. Come in, Pat. What’s up now? If it’s official business we’d better turn this young man out.”

  Major Porteous, who was a stout, red-faced Hampshire man, said, “It’s official business. But since I believe – am I right? – that this young man is a policeman, he might as well hear what I’ve got for you. He can report it to Dan, who may feel that he should take—well—should take appropriate action.”

  “You’re making me nervous,” said the general jovially. “Let’s have it without the trimmings.”

  “Well, sir, you remember that when I took over the QA store”—he turned to Luke—“that’s ‘A’ for ammunition, there was a certain amount of awkwardness.”

  The general did remember it. The previous head of QA had been a dipsomaniac wished on them by a commanding officer who was frantic to get rid of him. Once installed, he had proceeded to drown his sorrows in further libations of cognac, and had finally been removed, incapably drunk and strapped to a stretcher.

  “As you may imagine,” said Major Porteous, “his records were in no sort of order. I had a snap check made and I think I got a full record of what QA ought to contain. The trouble was that just at that time stuff
was coming in and going out almost daily. We had to reequip the First Army after Aubers Ridge and Festubert. So that, one way or another, I wasn’t sure that the record was complete. It was the best I could do. Two days ago, having a little more time on my hands, I had a thorough check made and it did seem to me that I was short of more than thirty rifles and several boxes of ammunition.”

  “You seemed to be short, but you’re not sure. Right?”

  “Fairly confident, sir. I’ve got a good storeman now.”

  “It’s worrying,” said the general, who sounded far from worried. “And I’ll let Dan know. Rifles aren’t in a seller’s market around here. Most of the men are only too glad to have done with them, for the time being.”

  Major Porteous departed, looking unhappy. Luke said, “I wonder, sir, if you could explain about these stores – what they’ve got in them and how they’re run. It would be very helpful.”

  The general, who was clearly attracted to the good-looking, deferential young man, said, “Better to see one of them than to talk about it, wouldn’t it be?”

  He led the way, down a path through the bushes and out into a wide-open space that backed on the road and railway. Here were the four main stores, each of them a substantial construction of vertical timbers roofed with corrugated iron.

  “When I took over,” said the general, “I suggested to the Q.M.G. that we put each one of them in charge of a different corps. QA, ammunition, is staffed by the infantry – the Middlesex Regiment is on duty at the moment. QB, food, by the Guards. QC, clothing, by the Royal Army Service Corps. And QD, drink, by the RHA As you know, horse gunners have a reputation for smartness and efficiency. I see the B.S.M. out in front there. If you’d care to look over it I’m sure he’ll be happy to open up for us.”

  Since it was the store that he was most anxious to see, Luke expressed his delight at the idea. The man who answered their hail and unbarred the door in the massive wire barrier could only have been a sergeant major. His brick-red, deeply lined face announced a man who had done most of his service under the tropical sun and had learned to accept difficulties and responsibilities as his daily lot.

  “B.S.M. Forgan,” said the general. “Our maître de chai.” When the B.S.M. looked blank, he translated it for him. “Our cellarmaster.”

  “That’s right,” said Forgan. “Enough drink here to sink a battleship. If you’d follow me …”

  There was a corridor running lengthways down the building, with a number of strong-looking doors on either side.

  “They’re all arranged the same.”

  He unlocked the first door and they could see rows of slatted shelves with boxes lined up on them. A card, tacked to the edge of each shelf, had two columns: one headed “In” and the other “Out.”

  “That way, I can see, at a glance, what should be here.”

  “Excellent,” said the general.

  Forgan relocked the door and led them to the end of the corridor, which opened out into an office where a pale young man was seated behind a desk, calculating figures. He did not get up when they came in.

  “Bombardier Light was an accountant before the war. Right?”

  The bombardier nodded. He looked as though he wished he was safely back in the London City office that the army had press-ganged him from.

  “Do you mean to say,” said Luke, “that you two look after all this?”

  “We’re the brains of the establishment,” said Forgan with a grin. “When stuff’s coming in or going out, and cases have to be shifted, we use the Jerry prisoners. And we’ve got our own transport.” Through the window, they could see a driver thoughtfully polishing the windshield of an army truck. “Otherwise, yes, we do it all ourselves.”

  “Under Major Yapp,” said the general sharply.

  “Yes, sir. Of course, under Major Yapp.”

  “Where is he?”

  “The M.O. has confined him to his quarters, sir. A stomach upset.”

  The general was clearly about to comment on this when the same orderly appeared, this time with a written message.

  “Good heavens,” said the general. “I’d almost forgotten. We’ve got a French general coming around and I’ve got to be nice to him. I’ll have to love you and leave you. If you want to look around the other stores you’re very welcome to do so.”

  Luke thanked him. What he really wanted was time to think about what he’d seen. If Pepin was right and there was a regular leak from this tightly organised and guarded store, he wondered how it operated.

  He was still wondering about it the next day when he set out on his customary morning walk. This time he went north of the river, crossing the playing field area, and making a laborious way upward over the loose gravel and the bushes and dwarf trees of the wasteland that fringed the base camp.

  After fifteen minutes of exhausting effort, he sat down, avoiding an offensive crop of thistles and concentrating his thoughts on the liquor store.

  Apart from casual assistance from the German prisoners, it seemed to be staffed by one major, one sergeant major, one bombardier, and one truck driver. From the point of view of security, this taut organisation was both an advantage and a disadvantage. If there had been a large staff of storemen, checkers, and handlers, that would have meant an increased chance of one of them being dishonest. On the other hand, if one of them were dishonest, there would have been an increased chance of his dishonesty being spotted by one or another of his fellows and reported.

  He considered different permutations and combinations of villainy in the liquor store.

  Suppose that “Puppy” Yapp, a known drinker, was helping himself to a regular supply of filched liquor. The wide-awake and efficient sergeant major would soon find out about it. After which, the major would be under the sergeant major’s thumb.

  Or they might be in the racket together. If they were, they would be pretty safe. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes was one of the few Latin tags he could remember from his village school. The head teacher had used it and explained what it meant when he had found his assistant becoming a lot too familiar with one of the boys.

  On the other hand, might the racketeers be the pale and ineffectual-looking Bombardier Light, hand in glove with the truck driver, Gunner Whitehouse. That seemed possible. He understood that when the liquor was being distributed on Tuesdays and Fridays to the different recipients, the two men went out together. Since Light was keeping the books, it would be easy for him to have additional bottles, or even cases, loaded onto the truck and to dispose of them profitably, sharing the proceeds with Whitehouse. He would then fake the records.

  Or might the German prisoners—? At this point, his thoughts were diverted by a rustling, as of a small mammal or a snake, making its way toward him along a fold in the ground. As he watched, the tangled hair of Pepin came in sight. He seemed unwilling to raise any part of himself from the ground. On the previous occasion, he had stood up, quite boldly. True, there had been no one in sight, and he had had the forest behind him as a means of escape. If he stood up now, he would have been within view of the playing fields, on which a number of men were strolling.

  Luke leaned forward to hear what his messenger had to say.

  “Faites attention à une boutique de vêtements dans la Rue de Samer.”

  Luke picked up the sense of this, though the voice was husky and the Alsatian accent turned “v” into “f” and “s” into “z.”

  Having delivered his message, Pepin had initiated a series of wriggling movements that were fast carrying him backward. In another moment, thought Luke, he would have disappeared entirely, like the figment of a dream, barely remembered on waking.

  “Hi,” he called out. “Stop a moment. Un instant. Dites-moi le nom de cette boutique. Ou le numéro.”

  Pepin was now almost invisible. Luke thought he heard “N’y a qu’une.” Then he was alone once more, and only a movement in the long grass persuaded him that he had not imagined the whole thing – alone, with thoughts that were not a
greeable. If Pepin felt obliged to take such elaborate precautions not to be seen talking to him, then he himself must be an object of suspicion, possibly of dislike, in this unstable and dangerous community.

  If this was true, he would have to proceed with great caution.

  Clearly, the first step was to take a walk down the Rue de Samer. Not to stroll down it, looking about him. No. To walk briskly down it, as though he had business at the far end.

  Although it was a busy street and crammed with shops, Pepin’s statement seemed to be accurate. There were bakers, pork butchers and horse butchers, patisseries and shops that simply called themselves “Alimentation” and sold everything from cheese to matches; jewellers, curio shops, an estate agent, and a pinball machine area, but there was only one shop that dealt with clothing.

  This was at the far end of the street, divided from the café on its left-hand side by an alley and bounded on the other side by a builder’s yard. Being cut off from the other shops in this way, it had an air of seclusion. Secluded, thought Luke, but far from exclusive. Two deep boxes outside were labelled “Occasions,” and the clothing in them, rummaged by the hands of frugal buyers, had clearly never been of top quality. Jackets and trousers in one box, shirts and undergarments in the other, with a tray of boots and shoes on the pavement in front of them.

  The clothing seemed to be entirely male. Maybe female garments were more discreetly arranged in the interior. But since the windows were of non-transparent milky glass, it was impossible to see. A discreet establishment, evidently, that did not go out of its way to attract attention. Luke was able to make out the name of the proprietor painted on the door: Hercule Serpolet.

  Serpolet? Wasn’t that French for that most fragrant of shrubs, wild thyme? He wondered what the inside of the shop actually smelled like.

  That afternoon he had a word with Colonel Harper. Feeling that the colonel might not entirely approve of Pepin, he simply said that information about the shop had come to him from a friend. When a policeman talking to another policeman uses the word “friend,” it has a meaning that inhibits further questions. Harper said he would speak to their liaison officer, who knew most of the local notables.