The children began to giggle. ‘Class,’ said the teacher in his strained voice, ‘move to the other end of the baths. Leave these . . . warriors . . . alone.’
Chapter Fourteen
SOME EVENINGS WERE quite peaceful in Dover now, once the German bombers had groaned over on their nightly journeys inland. Sometimes, on their return course, they would rid themselves of unused bombs but most of these fell into the fields.
It was eight o’clock and the light was diminishing, the sea a pale, flat, grey, the air becoming edgy. Frank and Nancy Cotton walked up the lane towards their house. ‘It’s just like it used to be, like peacetime,’ said Nancy holding on to his arm. ‘Do you think the worst of it’s over?’
‘They still turn their guns on us when they feel like it,’ he pointed out. ‘Thank God they usually miss. Half the time they don’t even hit England. We’re stuck here for the winter, both sides, them and us. They won’t get over the Channel now. Maybe they’ll come in the spring.’
They turned the bend in the lane and saw a military car standing in front of their hillside house. ‘They’ve come to get me,’ joked Frank. ‘They want me for the army.’
‘You’re too old,’ she said. Then uncertainly: ‘Aren’t you, Frank?’
‘A bit,’ he said. ‘I was last year.’
An officer and a civilian were standing by the car. ‘I’ve got a sinking feeling,’ said Nancy.
The men looked equally uneasy. They said they would like to talk. Frank invited them into the house and they stood awkwardly while they introduced themselves: Major John Haines and Mr Percy Begrie, of Kent County Council, who had a bowler hat.
Nancy still had misgivings. She said: ‘Would you like a cup of tea? We put the kettle on before we went out for our walk.’
‘I think we should tell you why we’ve come,’ said Begrie as if he thought the offer might be withdrawn. He tapped the crown of his bowler which he held before him.
He glanced at the officer who said: ‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’
‘Tell us,’ said Cotton in his policeman’s way.
‘We are here to tell you that this house will have to come down.’
Nancy was pouring from the kettle into the teapot and she let the water run over the top. She jumped away. ‘Come down from where?’
‘From where it is at present,’ said Begrie firmly. ‘It must be demolished.’
‘We need to put a heavy gun here,’ said the major.
‘Here?’ said Cotton. ‘Why here, for God’s sake? This is our home.’
‘It is an optimum site,’ said Begrie. ‘So the army tells us. You will be served with an order to quit.’
Nancy suddenly shouted. ‘No! No! No!’
Both men looked startled. ‘Everyone must make sacrifices in wartime,’ said Begrie as if he had given everything.
‘No,’ repeated Nancy but more quietly. ‘No, no, no. If you demolish this house you’ll have to demolish me with it.’ She glared at them angrily. ‘Don’t you think we’ve had enough down here? Bombs and shells, people dying in the streets. Don’t you think . . .’ She could not stop the tears.
‘I understand your annoyance,’ said Begrie. ‘But . . .’
‘Annoyance?’ retorted Cotton but keeping himself under control. ‘We’re bloody furious. Why here? There’s a hundred other places. There’s enough guns perched up here at the moment. Every few days they fire. God knows if they ever hit anything.’
‘We have to show caution in selecting targets,’ said Haines uncomfortably. ‘There are French civilians to consider.’
‘What about considering the British civilians?’ demanded Nancy.
Cotton said: ‘From what I hear these guns can hardly reach France anyway.’
‘That,’ answered the officer pompously, ‘is a military matter.’
Nancy had hidden her head in her hands. Begrie said: ‘You will be compensated. In full, of course – after the war. And you will be provided with alternative accommodation.’
The army man said: ‘These orders came right from the top. You will be aware that Winston Churchill came on a visit of inspection to Dover and he was not pleased with the way the guns were being deployed.’
‘Bugger Churchill,’ replied Cotton. He regarded them challengingly. ‘You can tell him I said it if you like. Let them put me in the Tower.’
‘Clear off,’ said Nancy angrily. ‘Go back where you came from, your offices. We’d get more consideration from the Germans. I thought we were fighting for freedom.’ Her voice cracked. ‘What kind of freedom is this?’
The two men left with mumbled goodnights, one behind the other, looking straight ahead. When they had gone Nancy wiped her eyes and made the tea. She stared at Cotton as she handed him his cup. ‘What shall we do, Frank?’
‘God knows,’ he sighed. ‘If they say we’ve got to go, we’ve got to go. It makes no difference to them what you’re doing in the war.’
They held their cups as they went to the cottage door and stood in amazement. Over Dover the sky seemed to be on fire.
‘The Huns have got a new secret weapon,’ breathed Nancy. ‘What next?’
There had been thunder lurking all day and that evening nineteen barrage balloons protecting Dover were struck by lightning.
‘It’s Hitler’s secret weapon,’ decided Harold. ‘Look, they’re all on fire. Come on, men!’
They ran, bare knees like pistons, through the streets towards their headquarters in the Anderson shelter, the balloons on fire in the sky above them as they ran. People rushed out of their houses. ‘Five hundred quid each, they cost,’ said a man crouching below his porch. ‘We can’t afford this war.’
As the balloons staggered down their cables clattered across the roofs and spread in the streets. It was as if Dover was being tied in a parcel of fire. The three boys jumped over the hawsers as they ran. Then a salvo of high-explosive shells were fired by the German guns across the Channel, encouraged by the red sky above Dover. As the boys ran up Seaview Crescent a shell exploded behind them bowling them over in the street. Harold’s mother came to her door in her curlers and ran downhill shouting: ‘Harold! Harold!’
Harold sat up propping himself on his hands. Spots had rolled into the gutter but pulled himself upright and squatted, shocked, on the kerb. Boot remained deathly still. ‘They got him!’ shouted Harold. Other people rushed into the street. ‘They got Booty!’
A man knelt by the boy and carefully turned him over. ‘There’s a lot of blood,’ he said.
‘That’s blackberries,’ said Harold. ‘He’s been eating black ’uns.’
‘This is blood,’ insisted the man. ‘In his head. I think he’s copped it.’
Harold’s mother and Spots both began to howl. Harold stood to attention and saluted. ‘Get his mother,’ called one of the dark, gathering crowd. Then Boot opened his eyes and said: ‘Oh, my head hurts.’
Ardley viewed the far side of the swimming bath, ten yards away, as he might survey a distant shore. ‘Do you think I can do it, Welshy?’ he said.
‘Easy,’ said Jenkins. ‘Take the ring off.’
Ardley had ceased being self-conscious about the lifebelt circling his middle. If the schoolchildren arrived to laugh, let them laugh. Now he pulled himself from it and again eyed the far side of the baths. ‘It’s not that far, is it,’ he said unconvincingly.
‘No distance at all,’ encouraged Jenkins. ‘And once you can do that, you can swim the length and then two lengths, then a mile. It’s only a matter of staying afloat. Once you’ve got the confidence, boy, you’ll do it.’
Ardley dropped into the pool, aromatic with chemicals at that early time in the morning. ‘Before you try by yourself,’ said Jenkins, ‘I’ll get in ahead of you and back away, holding the lifebelt out, a yard in front of your nose, and if you get in a panic you can grab on to it.’
Ardley said: ‘I could put one foot on the bottom.’
‘No, don’t. When you’re swimming somewhere, there might be no
bottom. Just get hold of the ring if you need to.’
The squat Jenkins went into the pool and treading water like a turtle, held the lifebelt in front of him. Ardley launched himself clumsily on to his chest. He sank. His hands grasped for the lifebelt, he hung on to it and came choking to the surface, his feet seeking the bottom. ‘Like an old woman,’ said Jenkins.
‘Sorry, Welshy . . . I’ll do it next time.’ He tried again with the same result.
Spluttering he hung on to the belt. ‘Next time,’ he said.
The next time he did it. He began spreading his arms on the surface of the water, extending and drawing in his legs. ‘You’re going!’ exclaimed the Welshman in delight. ‘You’re bloody swimming, man!’
It was only three strokes before he floundered. ‘It’s a start,’ encouraged Jenkins. ‘And in only a couple of days, a few hours. That’s good, bloody good.’ Ardley retreated to the side of the bath again. ‘If you think you can’t breathe put your mouth on one side, just above the surface, and keep it out of the water.’
At the next attempt Ardley miraculously swam the width of the bath. He set out, his arms moving sideways, his legs extending and contracting, with Jenkins shouting: ‘Big strokes, big strokes . . . that’s it, man, big strokes.’ Spitting water triumphantly he reached the far side. ‘I did it!’ he shouted in disbelief. ‘Welshy, I can swim!’
Jenkins was joyful. ‘You can! You did it! I taught you. Me! Now swim back. All the way.’
So engrossed were they that neither noticed the first influx of schoolchildren that morning. Six girls standing in an unspeaking clutch. Then, as Ardley made for the other side, they began to shout and cheer. ‘Come on! Come on!’ They jumped girlishly on the spot. Ardley scarcely noticed them. He struck out purposefully. He reached the far edge with the squeals of the schoolgirls filling the resounding baths.
‘Take a breather,’ said Jenkins. ‘Then we’ll try the length.’
As he said it he saw two red-capped military policemen enter at the far door. One pointed towards them and they strode forward on echoing boots, the girls moving nervously out of their way, and arrived at the edge of the pool where Ardley and Jenkins were sitting. They loomed over them. One was a sergeant and one a corporal. They surveyed the pair from beneath the sharply descending peaks of their caps. One consulted a pad. ‘Corporal Ardley and Lance-Corporal Jenkins,’ read the sergeant heavily.
‘That’s us, sergeant,’ said Ardley.
‘Is it trouble?’ asked Jenkins carefully.
‘Could be. We don’t know. We just do as we’re told. Orders. They want you back sharpish at Thorncliffe. Something’s on.’
The pair hurried for the changing room. A woman teacher in a bulging swimming costume had joined the girls. ‘Are they deserters?’ she enquired of the MPs. ‘Runaways?’
‘Nah,’ said the corporal. ‘They’re up for the Victoria Cross, missus.’
The military policemen had time for a cup of tea and a quick cake before Ardley and Jenkins reappeared. All four got into the army car outside and drove in twenty minutes to Thorncliffe. At the gate the sergeant of the guard pointed to a building at the edge of the parade square and said: ‘Over there.’
They got out of the car and ran around the square to the hut, pulling up quickly as they entered the door. The room was already full with Staff Sergeant Dunphy standing just inside and three officers sitting behind a table on a raised stage. There was a big map on a board behind them.
‘Good,’ murmured Dunphy. ‘You got here.’
Colonel Stelling, who was in the middle of the table, looked up: ‘Had a nice swim, chaps?’ he asked amiably.
‘Yes, sir, thank you, sir,’ said Jenkins. ‘We can both do it now.’
‘Well done,’ said Stelling genuinely. ‘Let’s hope you won’t need to.’
Ardley and Jenkins moved to chairs at the back of the room, next to Tugwell and Sproston. ‘This is it,’ muttered Sproston keeping his head low as if under fire. There were two rows of chairs occupied by the commandos. From behind every man looked the same, square and still, with thick shoulders and a short haircut.
‘Right, lads,’ said Stelling. ‘Now the bathing belles are back.’ There was a slight rustle of laughter but nobody turned to look.
‘My name, in case any of you don’t know by now, is Colonel Stelling – Robert Stelling if you meet me after the war and wish to buy me a drink. You have been training here less time than intended but the show we’re expected to put on apparently couldn’t wait. Perhaps only the War Cabinet know and they haven’t told me. Anyway, the objective remains the same and I know that we are prepared for it. It shouldn’t take very long and we may get away with it. By next weekend you could all be on leave.’ There was a slight cheer.
Stelling stood to the front of the stage like someone about to perform a turn. His voice, however, was formal and serious. ‘This is an amphibious operation,’ he said. ‘A landing by a compact force – you, gentlemen – on the French mainland with the object of destroying, or short of that, disabling those big guns the Hun keeps discharging across the Channel. They haven’t done much military damage because they are firing blind but they are annoying the population of Dover and, perhaps more to the point, annoying Mr Churchill.
‘I intend to take a party of a dozen men ashore and advance about a mile to those guns where, we hope, our friends from the Royal Engineers will be able to blow the bastards up. Then we retire in good order to the boats.
‘Reconnaissance suggests that despite the presence of the guns the Germans are not going about their defence duties particularly arduously. According to aerial photographs they took a month to dig a single trench. They obviously don’t expect to be interrupted by an incursion from this side. I intend to show them how wrong they are.’
Cartwright picked up Giselle from the hotel at seven in the evening. ‘This is becoming very exciting,’ she said but doubtfully. ‘A little mysterious.’
‘They just want some more help from you,’ said Cartwright.
‘I am like a spy,’ she laughed.
‘The perfect spy.’
They drove to the entrance of the military caves and again went through the guards and tunnels. Beyond the final door was Major-General Fisher, standing like a small boy among other officers. There was a tray of sherry on the desk. The general seemed delighted to see her, like an uncle meeting a favourite pretty niece. He offered her a glass of sherry. ‘We are pleased you have come,’ he said as he handed it to her. ‘Everybody was waiting for a drink.’ He chortled at his own joke. An orderly appeared and took the tray around.
All the officers were army except for one in naval uniform. Instow studied the young Frenchwoman and wondered about her. He had difficulty in believing that he was there. Four days previously he had been ordered to report to a downcast-looking vessel tied up among the many in Dover harbour and to familiarise himself with it, to take her out to sea with her six crew and ascertain her capabilities. He was to be her temporary commander. Being a spare officer was an uncertain business. ‘She’s a crummy old ex-RAF thing,’ said the officer who accompanied him into the Channel. ‘But she floats and she turns to port and to starboard. And she’s low in the water, so it’s difficult to see her.’
Now he saw how increasingly uneasy the French girl was. She looked as if she were tempted to turn, make her excuses and leave. When she had almost finished her sherry and her small talk, the diminutive major-general took her by the hand, again as if he were her uncle, and led her to a table in a corner of the cavern. As they reached it a bank of lights was turned on.
Below them was a model of a section of coastline, a beach, rocks and gullies, a cliff and the immediate hinterland, paths and a road, and dwellings. She knew the place. She approached carefully. ‘My father’s house,’ she pointed. ‘It is exact.’
The general picked up a pointer. ‘And you know this beach.’
‘Of course,’ Giselle echoed. ‘All my life. I used to play on it.’ She rega
rded him directly. She was a fraction taller than him. Some of the officers grinned. ‘Why do you show me?’ she asked.
Major-General Fisher did not answer the question. Instead he pointed. ‘Do you know what this is? It’s a sort of defile, a cutting in the rock.’
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘It is a path. We used to say as children, it is a secret path. It goes to the top of the cliff. Then you can walk, or run maybe, to the small road that goes to my house.’
‘There is a barn at your house.’
‘That is correct.’ She pointed. ‘There it is.’
He sighed, the sigh of a man who was about to put all his cards on the table. ‘Ma’m’selle,’ he said. ‘We need your help. It may be dangerous. But we need you to guide a group of soldiers from that beach up the concealed way to your house and then perhaps a little further. And we need to use the barn.’ He paused as if uncertain whether he should say any more. Then he did: ‘We are hoping for some local assistance, but we can’t be sure.’
She stared at the model. ‘Of course,’ she said, her voice low. ‘I will be able to see my mother and father again.’
There was an aching pause, then all the officers began to clap. Major-General Fisher looked surprised for a moment. Then he joined in. What could have been a sweet smile came on his small face. He hoped to God she would survive.
It was six in the morning and they could smell the breakfast as they left the chilly billet, the aroma of bacon drifting towards them in the seeping damp air. They hurried their first disgruntled pace, and arrived at the cookhouse to find the commandos resolutely piling their trays at the counter.
‘We’re always first at the action,’ said one of them as Ardley and the others sat down with their hot plates. ‘Especially at grub.’
‘At least they give you a good breakfast here,’ said Tugwell artlessly. He sliced into a fried egg and let the yolk run across the bacon.
‘They ’ave to,’ said the commando, half a sausage protruding from his mouth like a cigar. ‘It’s sort of a tradition with the cooks. Send you off full up to get fucking killed.’
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