Mr Campion's War

by Mike Ripley

  Corinne, who seemed not to require sleep, demanded a weapon if she was expected to stay on guard, so I passed her the revolver I had liberated from Astrid’s guard with a sigh of resignation and the request to wake me at the first sign of trouble. Then I settled down in my seat as best I could, closed my eyes and dreamt of splashing through long puddles while running down dark corridors, being chased by shadows firing quiet machine guns.

  I was woken just before dawn by Astrid Lunel jabbing an elbow into my ribs and Corinne pushing a stale croissant into my ear.

  ‘You should eat,’ said the girl. ‘We already have. Pity we have no coffee.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ I said, removing my spectacles and rubbing the sleep from my eyes. ‘Good morning to the both of you, by the way.’

  The rain had cleared, blown out to sea by the early stirrings of the annual mistral and, after topping up the fuel tank from one of the petrol cans in the boot, we set off again. We encountered little civilian traffic other than agricultural lorries or tractors pulling trailers, and the police and military trucks which passed took no interest in us. In the Aude valley I stopped at a farm so that we could buy goat’s milk and cheese, which went some way to softening the stale bread which now comprised the bulk of Corinne’s iron rations. We did what all tourists did and marvelled at the sight of the hilltop citadel that was Carcassonne, and then, on the run in to Toulouse, tracked down a telephone in the sole café in a village so small it could not boast a church so that Corinne could make a rendezvous with her field commander and the love of her life.

  Not that the main platform of Toulouse station was the place I would have chosen for a lovers’ tryst, but it seemed a safe enough place for a conference of war. There were fewer police hanging around than there had been in Marseilles, which was perhaps due to the fact that we were coming up to lunchtime, that most noble and sacred period of the French day which, during peacetime, seemed regulated by law to a minimum of three hours.

  I linked one of Astrid Lunel’s arms through mine and held on tight, not sure how she would react to contact with yet more strangers, even if they claimed to have her best interests at heart. I knew that she would only trust us if we reunited her with her husband, and could not blame her for that.

  Olivier Courteaux stood waiting for us in the middle of the platform, a small suitcase at his feet, his raincoat buttoned and belted, a black beret carefully sloped. I almost looked around to see where the cameras were, for surely this was Clark Gable auditioning for the part of a French secret agent, and I wondered if he saw me as a Leslie Howard, approaching to give him his cue, but for once Leslie Howard was ignored.

  The Frenchman took Corinne in his arms, lifting her off her feet and kissing her on both cheeks; then, having replaced her, he politely shook hands with Astrid Lunel.

  ‘Madame, we are here to help you on your journey.’ He reached down, picked up the suitcase and offered it to her. ‘I have brought you some clothes. They are not fashionable, and they are not new, but they are clean.’

  Astrid took the case in silence and held it in front of her stomach, both hands on the handle, as if it was a bomb.

  ‘Corinne will show you the ladies’ toilets and help you change,’ said Courteaux, at which point Corinne held out her hand to me and demanded change for the washroom attendant. Clutching a fistful of coins, she took Astrid by the arm and led her down the platform, walking directly towards two uniformed policemen who seemed suspiciously idle but clearly curious about the approaching pair of females.

  ‘Don’t worry about the flics,’ said Olivier. ‘They are my men.’

  ‘That was very thoughtful of you, as were the clothes for the lady.’

  ‘Corinne suggested it when she telephoned. I hope she was useful to you in Marseilles.’

  ‘Very. Invaluable, you might say. She is a very brave girl. Perhaps it would be best if she did not go back to Marseilles for a while as she has made enemies among the Pirani gang.’

  Courteaux shrugged his shoulders and smiled a film-star smile. ‘Those of us who fight with General de Gaulle have enemies everywhere. Corinne knows how to take care of herself.’

  ‘She does,’ I agreed, ‘but the Pirani gang will be very angry to have lost Madame Lunel and they will lash out.’

  ‘Why is this woman so important to them? And to London?’

  ‘That I cannot tell you, but please take my word that she is important, and I have promised to reunite her with her husband and get her out of France.’

  ‘You will use one of the pilgrim trails, over the mountains?’

  ‘That is my plan.’

  ‘You must move quickly, before winter – or the baby – arrives.’

  ‘I know, and must ask one more favour of you. Can you get a message across the border to a contact in Spain for me?’

  ‘To Reuben Vidal?’

  I did my best to suppress my surprise. ‘You know of him?’

  ‘Naturally; he is not only a good anti-fascist, but he is also the best guide you could have to take you across the Pyrenees. We have used him many times to help escaping airmen who have been shot down, but I do not think he will take kindly to helping a pregnant woman.’

  ‘He seems a good man as well as a good guide,’ I said.

  ‘Vidal has never betrayed us, which is why he still lives and moves freely in France.’ I could not doubt the tone in Courteaux’s voice. ‘What is your message?’

  ‘Tell him that his Canadian friend will be coming from the direction of Pau within the next five days. Those words exactly, please.’

  Olivier nodded in acceptance of his task.

  ‘You are meeting the husband in Pau?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ I said, as I had to Astrid. ‘Monsieur Lunel is currently languishing in the concentration camp at Gurs.’

  Now it was Olivier’s turn to try and control a dropping jaw and eyebrows suffering from St Vitus’s Dance.

  ‘And just how are you going to get him out of there?’

  ‘I am afraid, my friend, that is secret – top secret.’

  So secret I did not know myself.

  SEVENTEEN

  Saying Cheese

  The Dorchester Hotel, London. 20 May 1970

  ‘Had you any idea that the rather suave French lady seated next to your mother used to rush around pulling guns and shooting gangsters with your father when she was a teenager?’

  ‘Well, there was a war on,’ said Rupert, in a failed attempt to stem the flow of words gushing from his overexcited wife.

  ‘And they were doing it to rescue a woman who turned out to be pregnant! Fancy, putting a pregnant woman through that!’

  ‘We mothers-to-be had to put up with a lot in those days.’

  The younger Campions turned in response to Lady Amanda’s voice.

  ‘Don’t you dare look so shocked, Rupert,’ scolded his mother. ‘You were not found under a gooseberry bush. I was pregnant with you for the regulation nine months at almost the same time as Madame Lunel was pregnant, or Señora Vidal as she became; the lady you have been sitting next to all evening. It’s amazing we wartime mothers survived at all, what with absentee husbands, the air raids and rationing, not to mention the ingratitude of one’s offspring.’

  ‘Did Pop know?’ Rupert asked hesitantly. ‘When he was absent in France?’

  ‘Oh, he knew.’

  ‘Yet he still went on the mission to Marseilles?’ Perdita was shocked.

  ‘Of course he did; he was doing his duty, and he certainly did a lot more good out there than he would have done sitting at home in England moping around making sure I didn’t pick up heavy objects or take in ironing. As you so rightly observed, Rupert, there was a war on.’

  ‘So that’s what this is? It’s a reunion for all Pop’s wartime buddies?’

  ‘No, it’s not a reunion,’ smiled Amanda, ‘it’s a birthday party, and if you two would get a move on and lead the charge in to the next room, we can have birthday cake, once we’ve got the awful, grindin
g formalities out of the way.’

  ‘You mean there will be speeches?’

  ‘Worse than that.’ Amanda put her fingertips on to her son’s face and gently pulled his mouth into a smile. ‘There are going to be family photographs. Say cheese.’

  Slowly the diners decanted themselves into the adjoining reception room, which appeared to be being transformed into something between a dance hall and a photographic studio. Thin blackout curtains had been drawn across the large windows to block out the lights of the traffic on Park Lane, chairs and tables had been removed or pushed against the walls. At either end of the space created there was an altar. One was a drab affair, a black table groaning under the weight of square boxes of electronic equipment, the centrepiece of which was a rectangular co-joining of two record-player turntables. The table was flanked by large, floor-standing speakers, and behind it stood a metal tree, from the branches of which were suspended a variety of light fittings with coloured bulbs flashing slowly. Leaning over the turntables, earphones clamped to his head and his fingers caressing a large vinyl disc, was a skinny youth in a white T-shirt lost in concentration.

  The second altar at the opposite end of the room was a far more welcome sight for the bulk of the guests present. This table was covered with a crisp white cloth and, centre stage, on its own wooden plinth in splendid isolation, sat a square yard of birthday cake, its shining white surface adorned not with candles but with large Roman numerals in thick red icing in the shape LXX.

  Fussing around the table, vainly attempting to marshal the main members of the Campion family, was a middle-aged man wearing a pearl grey suit, a bouffant hairstyle and a very expensive Hasselblad camera from a sling around his neck.

  In an increasingly strident voice, his commands punctuated by loud clicks from the camera shutter, the photographer eventually captured a series of images of Mr Campion with Lady Amanda, then joined by Rupert and Perdita, then by Amanda’s brother Hal and sister Mary, with Guffy Randall belatedly united with his wife after failing to hear the numerous calls for his presence at the cake table rather than the bar.

  The rest of the guests shuffled into a scrum on what was to become the dance floor, waiting in polite expectation for the next stage of proceedings.

  ‘Are they not going to cut that splendid cake?’ said Dr Jolyon Livingstone to no one in particular.

  ‘I think that will be done off-stage, so to speak,’ said Robert Oncer Smith who, being an ambitious undergraduate, had already identified the sole master of a Cambridge college in the room. ‘That Lugg chappie – a bit of a vulgarian – claimed that they couldn’t find another knife strong enough to cut through icing as thick as that, so they’ve sent out for a cutlass. Of course, he could have been shooting me a line.’

  ‘I know Lugg of old,’ said Dr Livingstone, ‘and he is famous for the lines he shoots, aimed at unwary young people. I have, however, never considered him a vulgarian; at least, not out loud and within his hearing, which is said to have bat-like qualities.’

  To Dr Livingstone’s amusement, Master Smith gave the predictable guilty reaction of looking rapidly over both shoulders, but the vulgarian in question was nowhere to be seen. His absence had, however, been noticed in another section of the crowd.

  ‘How come Mr Lugg isn’t in the photographic line-up? Don’t family retainers count as family?’ pondered Precious Aird, who had attached herself to Charles Luke.

  ‘Lugg has a natural aversion to line-ups, and to having his picture taken,’ said the policeman, ‘with good reason, given his history.’

  ‘So where is he?’

  ‘Find out where they keep the port and you’ll probably find Lugg. He will have taken shelter there to avoid the speeches and, under normal conditions, I’d be hiding there with him.’

  Monsieur Joseph Fleurey, being involved in what might be termed the hospitality industry, was possibly the only person in the room aged over thirty familiar with the concept, and equipment, of ‘le disco’, and was taking a professional interest in the sound system hired in by The Dorchester and, being not that much over thirty, a personal interest in the stack of records waiting to be played. The titles represented an eclectic cross-section of British and American pop music, and Fleurey was envious of the fact that many of the discs were not yet available in France, although apprehensive about how the selection of music on offer would go down with the present audience.

  ‘Chiaroscuro,’ murmured the man standing next to him.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘It’s the name of this devilish contraption,’ said L. C. Corkran. ‘It’s stencilled down the side of that speaker, which looks big enough to damage the walls of Jericho. Fancy name for a purveyor of ear-bashing sounds purporting to be music, Chiaroscuro. Something to do with light and shade in paintings, isn’t it? Leonardo Da Vinci, Caravaggio, those chaps.’

  Unsure whether this was some sort of test, Joseph said, ‘I believe so. I think it’s rather a good name for a disco, but I did not expect to find one here tonight. A military band, perhaps, or one of your English sing-songs around the pub piano, but not the Rolling Stones and Manfred Mann.’

  ‘Albert’s been talking about the war, I suppose,’ conceded Mr Corkran. ‘Bound to, given the guests here tonight. Myself, Madame Thibus, Señora Vidal, yourself as a proxy for your father … all connected to Albert by the war.’

  ‘And the German gentleman, Ringer?’

  ‘Yes, him too.’

  ‘Is he still here? I would like to meet him.’

  ‘Robert’s popped outside to smoke one of his terrible cheroots. Can’t light one up indoors; they taint the curtains. Look out, we’re being called to order for the speechifying. Best look keen; only polite, and it puts off the ghastly music for a bit.’

  ‘Speeches should be short, brief, to the point, preferably over before they begin and, above all, short. They come in useful at the opening of Parliament but rarely once Parliament is in session. They are traditional at weddings and obligatory at funerals, but at birthdays they are usually prefaced by tiresome, off-key renditions of “Happy Birthday” – that inexplicably popular dirge which does nothing but remind the subject of his own mortality.

  ‘I therefore decree, without let or hindrance, that there will be no singing of that gruesome anthem tonight. Nor, as the more observant of you will have noticed, are there to be any candles on this splendid cake. This is not because I no longer possess the lung capacity to extinguish them, but because such would be the number required that, once lit, they would constitute a fire hazard. The bakers of this splendid cake have, however, provided a useful aide-mémoire should I have forgotten my age. For anyone present not blessed with a decent education, I should explain that the numerals LXX are Latin for “21 Again”, and I will brook no other translation, as it is my birthday.

  ‘You will have noticed – or if you haven’t, you soon will – that I have laid on a discotheque so that we may bop and boogie the night away. This will not be to everyone’s taste, I know. Indeed, if it becomes too raucous I may well retire to my chambers where a chaise longue – just like the one my mother used to call her “fainting couch” – has been prepared.

  ‘I beg the indulgence of those of my generation who will no doubt find the music on offer too loud and too fast and the songs incomprehensible, but this part of the evening’s entertainment is for the youngsters here, though the young at heart are more than welcome to join in. And before anyone starts to complain about the music, I beg them to remember that when we were young, our parents said exactly the same things about us attempting the Black Bottom or the Jitterbug, and we dismissed them as old fogies.

  ‘So my instructions, nay my orders, are that everyone should enjoy themselves, and for those who really do find the music intolerable – and yes, I am looking at you, Guffy – the bar will remain open. Until dawn, I’m told.

  ‘It only remains for me to thank you all for being here tonight. Some have travelled many miles, and for reasons which are ancill
ary to any birthday celebrations, and I would like to thank them personally.

  ‘Firstly, my old friend Freiherr Robert von Ringer, with whom I shared many adventures from undergraduate to … where is Robert, by the way?’

  There was a comprehensive shuffling of feet and turning of heads, Mr Campion’s audience acting as a single entity; or almost, until the crowd parted, and a large, mostly rotund shape advanced like a juggernaut.

  ‘The German gentleman,’ announced Lugg in his most favoured sepulchral tone, ‘has been incapacitated in an incident just outside the front door of this ’ere h’establishment. Incapacitated with a knife. An ambulance ’as been summoned but the hotel management think it wise to call in the police as well.’

  ‘I’m already here,’ said Commander Charles Luke, stepping forward.

  EIGHTEEN

  A Place You Do Not Want to Go

  Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Early November 1942

  The British have always loved Pau, and the Scots are probably to blame for that. In 1840, a Scottish doctor called Alexander Taylor published a book on how the climate and mineral waters of the city had cured him of typhus. Naturally, a boom in sickly, but well-to-do, British visitors followed, and many of them must have been Scots, as by the 1860s they had established an eighteen-hole golf course; a sure sign of Caledonian imperialism. It was a relaxed place where one leisurely ritual followed another. What better, after a round of golf played in all your Victorian formal finery, than a stately promenade along the magnificent Boulevard des Pyrénées, the concrete and stone balcony which girdled the old city and provided spectacular views of the distant mountains? For the more inquisitive tourist, the stone handrail which ran the length of the boulevard had a series of V-shaped depressions at irregular intervals. By bending down and looking along the depression, the viewer was given a clear sight-line of a particular peak which an accompanying engraved plaque helpfully identified. Especially popular among young male visitors was the game of making a lady friend admire the peak named the mamelon de singe and then demand that she translate the name plaque.