The Death of the Fronsac_A Novel

by Neal Ascherson

  19

  It was spring in the hospital grounds, and birds whistled at me from dripping trees. I limped along the paths, stabbing my stick into the gravel. Water welled up and filled the line of little holes behind me, one by one.

  Where were the others now? I missed them terribly. I imagined them in a forest clearing, showing partisans how to strip down the new American carbine. I pictured them looking at their watches in the tense quiet of a safe house, fitting on their headphones and then coaxing the frequency dial, millimetre by millimetre, towards a sputter of Morse from London. Didn’t I know how to do all that, too? And hadn’t I been impatient – at the end of those months of intricate training, of hardening fitness – to dive away with them through the hatch of a British bomber and fall through the night into a different planet?

  I had been so ready to jump. This new idea that I might soon be in action somewhere else, in France, seemed perfectly unreal. Back to that world of a divisional mess: adjutants, daily ‘sitrep’ meetings, red and green circles on maps covered with talc? I had seen enough of it in Poland, in 1939. Now, in France, I would probably revert to acting the sardonic bystander I had played so often. Once again, war had done its dirty trick and dropped me in the wrong place – alone in front of a stained, familiar mirror. Perhaps Wisia had been right to say that I would find myself only when my boots drove down into Polish soil.

  *

  The knots I had hoped to cut still chafed: Johnston, the Fronsac, that grotesque confession le Gallois had let me see. Johnston was still out there somewhere, and he could do me harm. But how could the French story about pre-war fascism be anything but fantasy? Johnston was malignant but surely too wary to have ventured into anything like that. And yet I had dreams. They were never about him or Greenock people, but about the burning ship itself. I beheld it monstrous and in agony, twisting and turning as smoke gushed out of its hull across the sea like blood spreading from a dying animal. The Fronsac asked: Who did this to me? In my dream, it was the ship and not the human beings I wanted to help.

  In the daytime, hitching myself along those gravel paths, I brooded on the three women who didn’t believe I could escape myself. Thinking of Helen excited me but made me angry. Did she really care for anyone but herself? For me? So what about Tibbie Fowler? I groaned aloud. Yes, but I could see now that my drunken passion at the castle was no better than cannibal lust, to devour all that she stood for. And I remembered her under the bridge asking if it was my mother I was missing.

  Then there was Wisia. One morning, with rain rapping on the hospital windows, I sat down and on impulse wrote a letter. Marry me! ‘I know you said how glad you were that we never did get married. But the world has changed so much since then. Me, too. And I am all you have left from your past, and you are all that I have left from mine. Who remembers my father and mother, who remembers your parents and Haneczka and Władek, except you and I? To share what we have lost in a way nobody else will ever understand – that’s love, isn’t it? Let’s finish what we began long ago. After all, we never officially broke off our engagement! Maybe a wartime wedding in your hospital chapel, if you aren’t well enough to come into town. And when I get back, after the war, we’ll make babies and rebuild that new Poland they talk about...’

  It went on like that for another page. I posted the letter, but instantly regretted it. Wisia didn’t answer. I could understand why not; the vulgarity of what I had said made me shudder. Her silence came as a relief.

  But finally I rang her hospital. ‘Who’s that you’re wanting? Ach, right, that’ll be the Polish lady? “Madam Fisher” we call her. Wee minute, now...’

  A male voice came on the line. ‘Doctor Lynch speaking. Are you related to this patient?... I see. No, I’m afraid she’s not up to visits just now. There was a haemorrhage – did you not know? We operated on the lung, and I was able to complete the procedure, but she isn’t responding too well. Not at the moment.’

  ‘I am an army officer, Doctor. So is Lieutenant Kaczmarek. Tell me.’

  There was a pause. ‘You’d do well to come through at once. Ask for me when you get here.’

  It was nearly midnight when I came hobbling up that long track. But Dr Lynch – burly, middle-aged – was still on duty. He walked towards the reception desk in his surgeon’s gown, a small rucksack in one hand.

  ‘I’m very sorry, but I have bad news. Your friend passed away this afternoon.’

  We sat down on two chairs in the lobby, side by side. He blew a long, tired breath.

  ‘We did our best. Patients her age usually get through. But it was like operating on somebody in their eighties: nothing left to fight with. Shockingly underweight, no blood pressure, the other lung nothing to boast about. You take a chance, but... If I had known how bad her heart was, I would have put the whole thing off.’

  He frowned. ‘I couldn’t believe it when they showed me her paybook afterwards and I saw her date of birth. Still in her twenties – a girl, in fact. Who’d have known it? Had she been in prison or something?’

  I found nothing to say.

  ‘You Poles seem to be having quite a rough time in this war.’

  He handed me the rucksack. ‘She didn’t regain consciousness. Wouldn’t have suffered. It’s no comfort, I suppose, but she couldn’t have lived long anyway. Condition much too advanced.’

  I touched the bag, which felt light, almost empty. Dr Lynch said: ‘She did get extreme unction. This morning, when I realised she was going, I got Father McGilligan to her. I saw to that. I’m a Catholic, too. Like yourself, I imagine. So we have to believe she’s in a state of grace, safe in somebody’s arms. That’s what they tell us, isn’t it?’

  When I stood up to go, Dr Lynch added: ‘I’m sorry, but we’ll need an idea about what to do with her. Cremation? The Vatican doesn’t approve, but in wartime... anyway, it’s something we could help to arrange.’

  ‘Can I see her?’

  A shrunken, austere woman lay on a bed. She could have been a distant relation of my Wisia, perhaps an aunt. Her eyes were closed, and somebody had wound a rosary around her fingers. I kissed her forehead, which was hard and cold, and left the room as quietly as I could.

  *

  It was mid-morning the next day before I got back to Edinburgh. Sitting on my own hospital bed, I opened the rucksack. There was the postcard of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa, a medallion of St Thérèse of Lisieux, a wristwatch and a pen, Wisia’s army paybook, the poems from Haifa, my tin of cigarettes still unopened. Carefully and separately wrapped in tissue paper, I found a red lipstick and a single gold earring.

  My own letter to her was there, too, replaced in its envelope. There was no sign of an answer. But there was a short note, written in English and not addressed to me. ‘In case of Death. Corpse to be buried in a free Poland, when such is possible. If possible in City of Lwów, after Bolsheviks removed. My watch and valuable things must take Major M. Szczucki, First Polish Armoured Division. I bless him.’

  It was silent in the room. I shared it with two other patients, but they were out. When I put Wisia’s possessions back in the rucksack and shook it, they rattled loudly. I kept shaking them, to cover the sound of my angry, painful sobs.

  The cremation was done in Glasgow. I slipped the tiny book of poems into the coffin before it was closed, and the lipstick. The undertakers were kindly; they agreed to store the ashes for me ‘until this is all over’. The golden earring I buttoned into the breast pocket of my uniform.

  Walking away from the crematorium, I tried to visualise Wisia’s face, her smile as she pushed a cherry into my mouth. But all I could see was the black asphalt under my feet. All I felt was pity for myself: robbed.

  20

  In my hospital, there was nobody I wanted to talk to. But neither did I want to be alone or in silence. So, with my leg almost recovered, I used the last week of my leave to telephone Greenock and ask Mrs Melville if I could stay for a few days.

  ‘Would you not prefer to be down
in London with your pals, having a fling in all those Piccadilly blackout parties?’ But when I came through the door at Union Street, she conceded a small smile. In a kitbag, I had brought her a length of parachute silk, even more precious than the legendary nylons. ‘That was not necessary, Major. But we’ll find a good use for it.’

  I gave Jackie a wooden statuette of a bear, whittled by German prisoners out of an old chair leg. ‘Thank you very much, Uncle Mike.’ It was impossible to know whether she liked it. She was much taller now, and her manner warier. Her hands had grown long and capable, protruding far beyond the cuffs of her blouse. The book she had been reading lay on the table: The Sea-Shore: Ecology of Intertidal Zones, Volume II.

  *

  ‘So you are staying in Union Street again? But that young lady you and Captain Guennec used to admire, the merry widow, I heard she was drowned.’ The Commandant shook his head, then coughed. The cigarettes, once Gauloises, had long ago become Pall Mall from the US Navy PX, but smoking had done nothing to reduce his weight.

  ‘Did they tell you, there was a comedy with her little girl, the one who is at school with my Françoise? So ironic! She was writing down details of all the convoys, just like Kellerman – you remember all that? Our security even raided the house. I had to call them off, it was just enfantillage. Little girls, even my own daughter, they want to feel important, invent secrets to keep. Big girls, too, of course.’

  He smiled. ‘Shoosky, I have to tell you, you look terrible. Not the leg. The face: such sadness. Who is she? Tell me everything – tu es ici en confessionnal!’

  The cognac bottle came out of the cupboard. I took one of his cigarettes, and the rich smells and tastes in that office – overheated, untidy, un-British – became comforting. I told him about the parachute course – he knew what that implied without asking for details – and then about breaking my ankle.

  He laughed so much that I thought he would choke. ‘Dancing? With a policewoman? Fell through the floor? Shoosky, you are telling me a Charlot silent film, a Charlie Chaplin! It’s too good. And this policewoman, now she has broken your heart as well as your leg?’ He began to heave and turn crimson again.

  ‘No, not her. Somebody – something else.’ Le Gallois glanced at me, and filled my glass again. Then I told him about Wisia. I talked for longer, and told him more of her story, of our story, than I had meant to. But I had forgotten what it felt like to talk about myself, about my life and feelings, to another man. When I finished, I looked up at le Gallois and saw that his eyes were wet.

  After a long moment, he got up and walked up and down the office. He pulled out a big handkerchief, very white in that shabby room, and carefully blew his nose.

  ‘My dear, I will tell you my philosophy. I could say, like the English: “This fucking war”. But instead I say this: a wind came from the sea.’

  He sat down again. ‘We grow up, we count up our little choices, we learn how to move safely between who we think we are and what we think we want. But then the wind comes from the sea, and we are blown into the night, like little birds, like leaves. A revolution, a “fucking war”, a deportation which drives a million families from their homes. A time when good girls who said their prayers starve in Asian deserts, when a ship you trust torpedoes herself and locks you in to burn or drown. The wind comes, Shoosky, and before the lights go out you see your mountains crumpling, your changeless landscape tattering into flying pieces of paper. Just stage scenery! And when light returns, you are lying naked on the beach of an unknown continent. Soon people will come and shout at you in a language you don’t know, put you in an itchy foreign uniform, give you a mug of tea – ugh!’

  This speech astonished me. Considering my friend, as he lay back in his chair and reached for another cigarette, I couldn’t picture the Commandant struggling ashore naked on an alien strand. His uniform was worn and faded, but still the uniform of his own country. Hardly a leaf flying before the tempest, he had been sitting comfortably in the same office for the last four years and – almost unique among Free French officers – he had his family with him.

  All the same, even if it had scarcely rattled the Commandant’s windows, he was right about the sea wind. A verse of our own poetry came to mind, lines to a falcon clinging to a ship’s rigging:

  You too, on life’s sea – you saw monsters,

  And the gale drove me astray; the rain drenched my wings...

  I said: ‘The wind does not only destroy. It can transform as well. Yes, I have lost almost everything – everybody. But I have also seen in this war how the wind makes some people grow wings, lets them discover that they can fly. For them – maybe only a few who can see their chance – the war means that they can drop an old life. They can be reborn as somebody quite different. It’s as if they jump through the holes torn by your wind, and escape. Like birds flying through a hole in a hunter’s net.’

  ‘How strange! My Polish friend is talking like a Scottish pastor. Perhaps Catholics in your country are Calvinists without knowing it. Rebirth? Who wants to be reborn? The point is precisely the opposite: when you are blown away to a strange place, you must become even more yourself. You have nothing familiar to prompt you, so you must become your own prompter. You must look in the mirror – if you can find one in the wreckage – and ask: Old boy, which line of conduct is mine, and which is not mine? Like an art collector, you know? So you have to develop an instinctive taste for yourself. This proposal is a Rembrandt, the real thing – me. But that one is not genuine Rembrandt – not me.’

  ‘You can be so sure?’

  ‘Of course. After the Armistice in 1940, I looked at the Marshal and all the little monarchists and holy perverts and Jew-baiters running towards him, and I said: that is not me. Then I looked at de Gaulle: alone, a bit mad, not even a reliable Republican... but, yes, that’s me. When I go back after the war he will probably offer me a government job, like deputy consul in Manchester or Oslo or somewhere... not me. Or I could take over my father’s old business in the Midi, wholesaler of herbs and seeds... yes, that’s me.’

  ‘Commandant, it’s you who are the Protestant here! Listening for the inner voice, claiming the right of private judgement? Soon you will tell me to follow my conscience.’

  ‘Why do you want to jump through a hole and become somebody else? I look at you and I see the same dreamy fellow I met four years ago: a fine Shoosky of the early mature period, torn out of its frame but definitely authentic.’

  ‘You don’t understand. Yes, your France is authentic, indestructible whoever wipes their boots on it. But my country keeps changing its shape and its name. I was born in the Habsburg Empire. My mother went to school in the Russian Empire. My birthplace had four different names – five, counting “Leopolis” – before I could talk, and was told that I lived in Poland. My father...’

  ‘That’s enough, Shoosky: I can imagine how much more, but it’s lunchtime. The mess – you’ll see changes; we have arranged our supplies quite acceptably.’

  It was true. Fresh eggs in mayonnaise, veal, new potatoes with garlic, bottles of rich red wine from Algeria. At the end, there was real coffee.

  ‘Did Madame Melville tell you about the anniversary? We are making a boat trip, day after tomorrow, to lay a wreath at the Fronsac. You’ll come too, naturally.’

  ‘What are you going to do with the wreck? I mean, it’s a French vessel; the Royal Navy can’t touch it without your permission.’

  ‘Yes, well, we should talk about that. You remember our last conversation... that crazy letter and so on? The wreck is several big problems. First of all, it still contains the bodies of the crew. France must recover and honour them. Secondly, the hull is full of unstable munitions – shells, torpedoes, but depth charges above all. The Brits have been making a big fuss about this. They are right; but they are the only people who know how to remove that stuff safely. Thirdly, and – Shoosky – this is between you and me... the box. Yes, the box in Kellerman’s letter, where he and Lieutenant Melville p
ut their manifesto. Probably it never existed. But I would like to make sure.’

  ‘How can you find it?’

  ‘Ah, that’s arranged. A man came to see me from a firm which cuts up wrecks for the British Admiralty. He was here only last week. We discussed a contract to raise the Fronsac – technically, that could be complicated – and tow her out to a shipbreaker’s yard. He said he would get on board in the next few days and make an estimate.’

  The Commandant smiled. ‘I put off telling him about the depth charges. But I did mention the box. I said that in a certain place, in the chartroom, there might still be a steel box containing highly secret French material, naval code books and such-like, which must be secured before any other work began. Could he look out for the box? I warned him not to attempt to open it; I said the lock was fitted with an armed explosive device. He seemed to understand the problem very well.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘I don’t remember – why does it matter? Yes, I do – he was called Mr Ketling.’

  *

  The officers’ mess was in a different building, the other side of a parade yard. After lunch, we walked back to the Commandant’s office. The fresh wind cooled my head after the bottle of Rabelais Rouge, while I thought carefully. Then I asked: ‘While we’re on the subject, what’s the news about Kellerman?’

  ‘I’m not supposed to know. And certainly you are not. Well, he is in London. Free! Sort of free. He sat in a cell here for a long time, and then our people said to him: “Enough of this comedy. Prepare yourself, because tomorrow morning we are taking you to the rifle range on the top of the hill, and there will be an accident. No trial for little cunt-crabs like you.”

  ‘So he began to weep and beg, and they said: “Don’t worry, nobody will recognise your body. I’m afraid we use rather large, soft-nosed bullets, which take most of your face away.” That did it. A proposition: go to London for us, and mingle with certain officers our colleagues have doubts about. “You will be a soldier-servant: make their coffee, iron their trousers, read their letters. Perhaps you can let your own Vichy sympathies show, so that they confide in you. If you have no results after three months, we will see you again on the rifle range.” But it seems that he is producing very nice results. So I suppose our people no longer need his Fronsac confession.’