‘At the double.’
They ran, following the bare track across the plateau. They ran, Totosh bounding along, barking with pleasure at the exercise. And there, as they crested the brow and the land fell away, was … the sea. No time to stand and stare. They ran. The track became a wide and shallow valley between hedges of gorse, narrowing and deepening as they pounded along snatching at every breath, packs shifting, canteens banging. But when they heard the roar of approaching planes, the sides of the valley were not yet shoulder height.
‘Take cover.’
They flung themselves at the banks, flattening their bodies beneath the gorse as a pair of Stuka dive-bombers flew over at tree top height.
‘Stay put.’ In the distance, more engine noise. The bank was warm and scented. His damp forehead was pressed against red soil filled with pebbles and laced with straggling ivy, exposed roots, emaciated seedlings struggling to survive.
Three fighters sped over them. ‘Ours,’ said someone. ‘Hurricanes.’
He waited and listened. Nothing. Nothing but the wind blowing off the sea and Totosh panting where he sat in the middle of the track, waiting for the walk to continue.
The track deepened and narrowed, with the banks now higher than their heads, the hedges curling in, making it almost a hollow. And suddenly, they were out of the hollow and on a path running above the coast. The sea shimmered in the sun, a slight haze making the water seem quite still. In the distance, what looked like a pleasure boat was steaming along and in the far distance a smudge that could have been a warship. The black clouds seemed higher and thicker.
He couldn’t resist. ‘“Thalatta, thalatta”.’ He was grinning with mixed elation and relief, his eyes bright green. ‘“Thalatta, thalatta”.’
The section exchanged anxious glances. Newman whispered, ‘It’s only ancient Greek.’
Someone sneezed; the rest of the section gave a cheer. Peter smiled inwardly. ‘Fall in. We’ll find the harbour; see if someone will take us across.’
In French, a thin voice inquired politely, ‘Can I be of assistance to the follower of Xenophon?’ Watery brown eyes surveyed them from a narrow face, fine features covered by a patchwork of lines and creases.
Peter came down to earth, cursing himself. How easily it might have been Germans blasting away. Instead, here was an elderly man, perhaps in his 80s, in a light overcoat and a beret and highly polished black shoes. Although the weather was warm, he wore a scarf and gloves. He walked with the help of a cane, ebony with a silver handle.
‘Raphaël Bloch.’ He took out a silver cardholder. “Raphaël Bloch Ancien Professeur Lycée Condorcet Amiens”. ‘I take it from the reference to the ten thousand that you and your men are trying to return to England.’
‘Peter Hill. Corporal. We are hoping to find a fisherman who will take us across. But, yes, we have been marching in search of the sea, and when we stumbled on it, celebration seemed appropriate.’
‘You must make haste. It is only a matter of time before the government sells us out. Do you know where you go next?’
Peter repeated the village that Micheline had pointed out.
‘That is not impossible, but let me suggest an alternative.’ Not far was a creek where three or four small fishing boats were moored. His grandson Edmond was among the fishermen who kept a boat there, one certainly big enough for their needs. He would be at the mooring at five o’clock next morning, just before high tide. He was sure Edmond would carry them over.
‘That is perfect. We are deeply grateful. Is there anything we can do in return?’
‘I will be happy if Edmond decides to remain in your country. Whatever you can do to persuade him will earn my gratitude. In the meantime, you must disappear.’ Many villas were unoccupied. The owners had fled or, with a hint of a smile, were unlikely to come for a holiday. He gave Peter directions to a secluded villa a short walk from the creek. He seemed to be enjoying himself. ‘Entry unobserved should not present problems for the successors to the ten thousand.’
‘Perhaps you and your wife would come with us.’
‘My wife is dead these 15 years. As for me, I have already seen two wars with the Germans. I will confront them in France for the third time. But I do hope you might persuade Edmond to stay in your country.’ He took out a small gold pencil and scribbled some words on his card. ‘Please give this to him. Now, I wish you good luck. I must complete my constitutional.’ He raised his cane in a salute and walked on past.
Out at sea, a passenger ferry was sailing away from the coast. She had a paddle steamer, deep in the water, for company. Behind her, the columns of black smoke had multiplied, their peaks joining to make a single dense cloud.
****
‘The Belle Marie will take you to England, as he asks, but I will not stay.’
‘He is very anxious that you remain in England.’
‘I have obligations here of which he is unaware.’ Small but compact-looking, M. Bloch’s grandson shared his grandfather’s narrow face and fine features. His speech, too, was an echo of the ancien professeur and seemed at odds with his blue fisherman’s overalls, rubber boots and seaman’s cap. His blue and white fishing boat had ropes neatly coiled, planking scrubbed white, fishing nets and lines ready at the stern. Fittings of polished brass and teak glinted in the first rays of the sun. Her owner was deep in thought, looking down at the fine writing on his grandfather’s card.
Black in the dawn light, the sea was sucking and gurgling under the quay and its piers, rising and falling with little splashes as it flooded along the creek. A muddy stream ran out of the cliff down which they had just found their way and into a culvert that divided a scattering of boathouses from a workshop and, just across from the boat, a shuttered fish shop and restaurant, its sign offering scallops, turbot, haddock, herrings, and, as a speciality, waterzoï fish soup. Totosh was sniffing round its door, uttering little growls. Peter called, then went to get the dog, rubbing his flanks. How the tang of cigarettes persisted over the dull smell of fish.
‘You can get your men aboard. The tide is coming up and we must go. I will head for Folkestone. The evacuation from Dunkerque has filled the Dover channel with ships of all sizes. We may even be given a Royal Navy escort.’
‘We have been out of touch and heard only a fleeting mention of evacuation from Dunkerque.’
‘I’ll tell you what little I know en route. We must go now.’
Peter had left Newman and his Bren gun on the cliff path and dispersed the others round the creek while he went to talk to Edmond. Now he ordered them in. ‘All aboard. This way for The Skylark.’ He held Morgan back. ‘Corner of that warehouse. Keep look out up the cliff. Cover us. I’ll bring you back in time, don’t worry.’ The rest of the section filed awkwardly on board. ‘Deck-chairs and blankets, corp?’ said White. Simmons, in falsetto, put on a high-falutin’ accent. ‘Tell the steward I’m dinin’ on the captain’s table.’
****
Calling to Peter to stand by to cast off, Edmond went to start the engine. Peter handed his rifle and Totosh over to Bell but put the shotgun carefully along the side, out of harm’s way, to be unloaded when they’d cleared the creek. He checked the rest of the section, now scattered round the deck trying to make themselves comfortable. Someone had produced a pack of cards. Ready for the off. The off! Home! Had he really managed it?
The boat was lifting and falling as the tide surged in. White and Simmons began to sing,
‘“My old man said, ‘Foller the van, and don’t dilly dally on the way’.
Orf went the van with me ’ome packed in it…”’
The rest joined in. It was the ELR unofficial march; the regimental band would break into it at the end of a parade.
‘“…I walked be’ind with me old cock linnet…”’
Peter shut them up. ‘Save it for the Old Bull and Bush.’ In the unsparing first light of morning, they looked drawn, exhausted. He turned to call in Morgan.
‘Put your hands up
.’ The shout in English echoed round the cove, freezing him in place. ‘Stand where you are.’ On the quayside were two figures, one pointing a heavy machine carbine straight at him. Behind them, the restaurant door was wide open. ‘Fisherman, turn off your engine and come on deck.’ That command was in French, heavily accented. The two came up to the boat. One in German uniform, spare in build, almost lank, an officer. The other in civilian clothes, heavier, tougher-looking, holding the carbine, finger on the trigger, smiling his hope of Peter’s making a move.
The civilian uttered some German sentences. The officer continued, his English fluent. ‘Corporal, please collect your comrades’ weapons and pile them together here. Then, if you all go peacefully to join the rest of your army already in captivity, perhaps we will overlook your French friend’s foolish and unfriendly activity—’
Both men jerked round. Behind them boots were thudding towards the quay.
It was Morgan, running, shouting, ‘I surrender, I surrender.’ He came up to the civilian, threw down his rifle and stood back with his hands up, but the civilian drove the butt of his carbine first into Morgan’s stomach and then, as Morgan doubled up, down into his neck.
As Morgan fell, Peter came to life, reaching under the rail for the shotgun, firing from the hip, firing into the civilian’s face as the man turned back to the boat. He jumped on to the quay, firing again point-blank. The civilian jerked back and back, collapsing, his head a bloody mass. The machine carbine rattled on the quay.
‘You have killed the sergeant.’ Blood and tiny fragments of flesh had spattered the German officer and his uniform. He seemed amazed.
‘And I’ll kill you too. On the boat if you want to live.’
Peter reloaded and jammed the muzzle into the officer’s ribs. Snatching his revolver from its holster, he shouted at the section ‘Morgan on board. Now.’ The officer was wiping his face and neck with a large white handkerchief. Peter prodded him in the back with the shotgun. ‘On the boat, I said.’
The light was brighter still by the minute, the sea turning blue, shafts of red running along the wavelets from the rising sun, the water lifting to the high tide mark on the quay. He thought he saw movement along the cliff top. The German said ‘Make haste. A patrol is out searching for you.’
Edmond seemed frozen. Peter took him by the shoulders and shook him. ‘We go, we go.’ There was movement along the cliff, and distant shouting. The boat vibrated. Edmond had started the engine. White was at the bow line. The rest of the section had retrieved their weapons and were sighting up to the cliff. Then Edmond gestured helplessly towards the shore.
Running down the quay towards them was a slim young woman, a bundle in a shawl clutched to her chest. She called in a clear voice, ‘Edmond, you cannot go without us. Your grandfather says you will not return.’
‘Yours?’ On Edmond’s nod, Peter ran and half-pulled, half-carried her over the side.
Flashes sparkled along the cliff. A bullet chipped the boathouse, another broke a window in the restaurant, a string kicked up dust by the quay.
‘Stern line off! Newman, a burst.’
The Bren rattled. Its fruitless stream of bullets rose and fell with the motion of the Belle Marie as she headed out of the creek towards the open sea. More flashes lined the cliff behind them. Gulls flocked overhead, swooping and beating upwards with wild shouts.
Amid the din, Peter heard a baby cry. Looking up at the wheelhouse, he saw the young woman framed in its window, rocking a baby in her arms.
****
Had he been a fool, that far-off evening in Dafini’s, not to have said yes to Aubrey on his hint of a billet in the Ministry of Information? Perhaps brought it up when they’d chatted about John Bull and Dr Johnson? He could have been strolling through the MoI’s cultured passageways. What his education and literary interests made him good for.
At that moment, the Belle Marie running through the white-combed water, bringing his section home, Totosh between his feet, tail thumping, the German officer, his prisoner, looking pensive – well, the answer seemed plain enough.
Chapter Seven
Idling his time away in the ELR corporals’ mess as he waited to be called to the adjutant, Peter took the chance to review, try to understand, the whole period in France. From beginning to end, from taking up the defensive position on the BEF’s withdrawal perimeter to sailing home with their saviour Edmond Bloch and his fiancée Lucienne, who’d scrambled aboard with their little Raphaël as bullets exploded round the boat, with the captive German officer, with the remainder of the section, and Totosh. The experience of a lifetime. A lifetime of experience.
The German officer had formally introduced himself: ‘Major Reichenau of the Abwehr, Military Intelligence.’
‘Your English is very good.’
‘I had the great privilege of being a Rhodes Scholar’
‘At?’
‘Magdalen. You were at Oxford?’
‘The other place. Your civilian colleague?’
‘Not quite a colleague. You killed a Gestapo police sergeant, Sergeant Abs…’
The major had been about to say something more, then thought better of it. In later conversation, they’d discovered that at Magdalen the major had got to know a Hill distant cousin, now a rising cathedral canon.
He’d learned a little more about Edmond and Lucienne. He was a musician with ambitions to compose; she was training as a singer and sang his songs in bars and cabarets. As a fisherman, Edmond had escaped call-up, though his father, a major in the reserve from 1918, had been summoned and placed in charge of area transport and rations in a sub-division of the Ninth Army, facing the Ardennes. Nothing had been heard from him since the German offensive began.
****
And, there they were. The crossing had been uneventful. An RAF Hurricane had buzzed them. Then a Royal Navy corvette had picked them up and shadowed them for part of the way. Then a motor torpedo boat guided them into Folkestone and a coastguard launch found them a mooring. He’d led the way ashore, marvelling at his sheer good fortune, amazed that he’d brought them back, more or less intact. He hoped Paul was safe in Micheline’s arms. Morgan had been dead when they hauled him aboard.
He’d lined up the section on the dock and they’d given three cheers to Edmond, who’d accepted that he and Lucienne could not return and would get in touch with relatives in north-west London.
The port had been overwhelmed with evacuated troops, jubilant, exhausted, shocked. He’d managed to see poor Morgan taken off. Then, with the major in their midst, he’d given the order ‘Shoulder arms’ and marched the section to the reception area set up for evacuated troops. The arrival of an officer of German Army intelligence had caused a stir. Short-staffed, the port major had told Peter to keep the prisoner under close guard until some military police could be found. The major had said to the bemused officer, ‘Your corporal shot a Gestapo police sergeant, you know, to pieces. He used a hunter’s gun. Yes, a hunter’s gun to kill a Gestapo sergeant.’ To Peter, he’d appeared to find it something of a joke.
Just before the military police arrived, the major had thanked Peter for his courtesy and murmured, ‘If you have loved ones in London, send them to the country.’ Then, just before he was marched away, he’d given Peter an Oxford phone number and asked if he’d let a very old friend know ‘I am back in the country’. With a smile, ‘For a while at least …’
Totosh had to go into kennels. He’d given the dejected collie a last hug and sworn to see him as soon as he could. Edmond and Lucienne had promised to look after him when they were settled.
A series of slow troop-trains had taken them in an erratic, halting progress towards the ELR barracks. At a dispersal unit at Abingdon, he’d begged small change from a kindly WVS lady and rung the German major’s Oxford contact.
A cold female voice had asked if it was college business, if so could he call the lodge next day and ask for the bursar.
‘No. It’s personal. Could you kindly tel
l the professor it concerns a Major Reichenau?’
‘What the devil do you want and who the devil do you mean?’ A new voice was on the line, clipped and sharp.
‘Major Reichenau of the Abwehr asked me to telephone you to say that he is now in England, a prisoner of war. “Back in the country for a while at least”, he said.’
‘And who, pray, are you?’
‘Corporal Peter Hill of the East London Rifles. We took Major Reichenau prisoner in France and brought him to Folkestone.’
‘Well, Corporal Hill, if that’s who you are, I’m sorry to disappoint you but you’ve wasted your money. I have no idea whom you’re talking about. The German joke’s on you, I’m afraid.’ The phone had been slammed down.
Holding the dead receiver, Peter thought he would have been much more surprised if the professor hadn’t put down the phone. The major’s advice to make haste? His paving the way to the phone request with that tip about London—probable tosh? Who was he? Well, none of a corporal’s business; the call had been made.
Finally arriving at the ELR regimental base, he’d discovered that the part-battalion, patched together and despatched to France in those desperate final moments, had, on the whole, been fortunate, some might say had lived up to the ELR’s historic reputation, though of his platoon only Peter’s section had returned. Nothing had been heard of the other two. The sergeant and Bo-Peep had made it back, “through enemy lines” apparently.
White, Simmons, Roberts, Johnson, Bell, Mulligan and Newman had been sent on leave before being returned to the east coast on invasion watch. Newman had courteously thanked him for bringing them home. Peter was to remain in barracks “pending adjutant’s interview”. No explanation was given. Officer selection was the view in the corporals’ mess. Unlikely, he thought. Certainly unwelcome. But if not that?
Clearing up his kit, he found a redolent blue pack, hastily squirreled away on leaving Lesort’s. When he lit up in the corporal’s mess, the senior corporal was mandated to suggest that if he must smoke his foreign cigarettes, could he kindly do so elsewhere, say in the middle of the square (not put quite in those words)? Time on his hands and the Gauloises’s aromatic tang brought on reflections on his French odyssey, on the discovery that from deep within him an alien spirit had uncurled, bringing some undreamed of capacity for violence, murderous violence.
Innocence To Die For Page 23