‘Mrs Mackinder, Annaliese,’ Fergus said, ‘has just had a baby.’ He tapped the letter on his desk. ‘The news arrived yesterday.’
Bert gazed at him.
‘Your baby, Bert. Your son.’
‘Sir...’
‘It is your baby. It certainly isn’t mine. And you were last in Somerset in February. Nine months ago.’
Bert began to twist the beret, while his face glowed, and his entire large body seemed to shrivel.
‘Do you love her, Bert?’ Fergus asked.
Bert raised his head. ‘Love her, sir. Why...’
‘Yes, or no, Bert.’
Bert swallowed. ‘Yes, sir. I asked her to marry me, sir. But she wouldn’t. I feel like shit, sir. It just happened. You know what she’s like.’
‘I only found out what she’s like just before the invasion,’ Fergus told him.
‘You’ve known all that time, sir?’
‘Yes. It didn’t seem appropriate to speak of it before. But now...I am not going to marry her, Bert. She knows this. I think it would he the decent thing for you to marry her instead.’
‘She’ll never do it, sir.’
‘She will, if you become an officer.’
Bert considered that.
‘There is also the point that if you put in for a commission, they would probably send you home for a spell. You could see the boy. And Annaliese.’
‘She doesn’t love me, sir.’
‘She’s the mother of your child, Bert. I think she could well fall in love with you, if you handle it right. She obviously likes making love to you.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Bert said, and gulped again.
‘I’d like you to consider what I’ve said, Bert. I also think that you should write her.’
‘Me, sir?’
‘Yes. I think she would like to hear from you. Oh, by the way, I would like to adopt my brother’s son, if that is all right with you.’
‘With me, sir?’
‘I’ve already told Annaliese,’ Fergus said. ‘You make a decision, Bert.’
*
It was remarkable how much better Fergus felt after that chat, what a weight he felt lifted from his shoulders. He was especially pleased with the calm way Bert had taken it. Perhaps he should have done it long before; he had had a touch of moral cowardice there. On the other hand, the calmness on both sides had been at least partly due to the fact that he had no longer felt any personal anger about what had happened. So perhaps the wait had been necessary, after all. And now it was up to Bert — and Annaliese. His concern was to find Monique again, just as soon as he could. Supposing the war was ever going to end. Because the weather just got worse, and was suddenly accompanied by a very sharp fall in the temperature. Fergus awoke on the morning of Sunday, 10 December, to find his entire command covered in white, and when later on that day Manton arrived, the Brigadier also took a gloomy view of the situation.
‘It’s going to be a long winter, Fergus,’ he told him. ‘Everyone is just plain tired and fed up. You can let your men take it a bit easier.’
‘Agreed, sir. But the Germans are only a few miles away, over there.’
‘They are even more tired and fed up than we are,’ Manton asserted. ‘There’s no point in keeping our people on constant alert until there’s a thaw. But Monty wants to have a word.’
Next morning Fergus drove west to GHQ, a long and hazardous journey on the slippery roads, and was entertained to dinner. ‘You have been a colonel the devil of a long time,’ Montgomery told him. ‘I think it’s time you moved up. Manton is moving up to take division; I’d like you to have the brigade.’
Fergus didn’t know what to say.
‘I know you’ve served with the Westerns throughout your career,’ the Field Marshal went on. ‘But you know armoured fighting, and you know the commanders in the other regiments. Congratulations. Who do you recommend for colonel of the regiment?’
‘Well, Jim Smithie, sir. He’s next in seniority. He’s been my adjutant since poor Johnny Allack bought it on the beach.’
‘And as adjutant?’
‘Ronnie Mather. They’re both good men.’
‘Good. Inform Smithie that he will take command of the Westerns, as from tomorrow. And move Mather up as well. Oh, and you can take some leave. I’m sure you need it. Have three days in Paris, and enjoy yourself. You’ll take over the brigade a week today, Monday, the 18th.’
Fergus didn’t know whether he was standing on his head or his heels. Next morning he returned to Bassenge, his jeep slithering and sliding on the icy roads, and called an officers’ meeting. The opposition they had encountered since Caen had been so slight that they had not suffered a single casualty from lieutenant up, and he had got to know these men really well. ‘So there it is,’ he told them. ‘I’m being booted upstairs.’
‘Oh, best congratulations, sir,’ Mather said ‘There’s no one could possibly deserve it more.’
Smithie was overwhelmed. ‘I’ll try to look after the regiment for you, sir,’ he promised. ‘Until the next Mackinder comes along.’
‘That will be some time in the future,’ Fergus told him, thinking of little four-year-old Ian.
The Sergeant-Major was dumbfounded. ‘I never thought you’d be leaving us, sir,’ he said.
‘Had to happen,’ Fergus told him. ‘Have you written Annaliese?’
‘Well, yes, sir, I have. But I haven’t had a reply.’
‘Early days, Bert. You’ll get your reply for Christmas.’
Then he could sit back and savour his good fortune. He was to be a brigadier. He was only thirty-four years old, so he could claim to have his foot at last firmly on the ladder of command; Dad, for all his fame, had not become a brigadier until thirty-six. It was a future to which he had always looked, without, in the hurly-burly of the war, ever considering it in practical terms. There was the war, and there was After the War — if one survived that long. Time enough to consider After the War when it finally arrived, and that was going to take a little while longer.
But he was going to command the brigade, if ever they could have a proper armoured battle again. He felt not the least bit afraid or that. He was Murdoch Mackinder’s son, and he did not lack the family confidence.
At least in military matters. He was aware of feeling distinctly nervous as he neared Paris. He left Maastricht in the weekly dispatch truck driven by Sergeant Sullivan before it was dawn on Thursday the 14th, taking the road which ran beside the Meuse, through Liege and then Namur. The skies were leaden, and it was snowing lightly, and as this area formed the border between the British and American armies, the roads were already bad; they were clogged with traffic, as Christmas fare was slowly taken up to the front — the doughboys were not going to be asked to go without their pudding and turkey, even in the midst of a war. Thus the journey took several hours longer than he had anticipated, and was a broken and not entirely teetotal affair, as every American unit with whom they became bogged down seemed to be getting ready to celebrate Christmas several days early.
Certainly there was hardly an indication that the Germans were indeed only twenty-odd miles away, still clinging to that famous and all-important river. ‘I guess they’ll be pulling back across it for good, when the weather improves,’ opined an American Colonel with whom Fergus shared a mid-morning coffee well laced with brandy. ‘Those guys know they’re licked. Why should they want to stay around and get flattened?’
Fergus was reminded, apart from the weather, of the periods in between battles in North Africa, when the troops had sunbathed and the war had seemed a very long way away; the situation here in the Ardennes appeared even more similar because of the way the American forces were spread out, each unit clinging resolutely to its own little village, or farm, where there was some warmth to be found. In North Africa, those periods of non-war had been apt to end with dramatic and brutal suddenness, especially where Rommel was concerned. Presumably this one would also, when the first thaw came, but at least t
here was no longer a Rommel to trouble them.
*
It was well into an early December dusk when the truck finally rolled through the suburbs of Paris. Fergus had given Sullivan the address Monique had written down, but his knowledge of the city was limited, so they homed on the Arc de Triomphe, and there consulted a taxi driver. It was really quite remarkable how quickly the city had returned to normal. It had only been liberated a few months previously, and the war was still very much on — presumably there were blackout restrictions in force — yet the Champs Elysees was a ribbon of light and a mass of people, wrapped up against the cold, but either peering into shop windows as they made their Christmas preparations or sitting at boulevard cafés drinking their coffee and aperitifs.
The city was remarkably undamaged, as well. The Allied air forces had spared it as much as possible, and the German commander, General von Choltitz, had disobeyed Hitler’s orders to destroy it before surrendering. Once again, Fergus thought, four years might never have been, and it could have been his only previous visit here, at Christmas 1939, when, the regiment again stationed only a few miles to the north, they had been awaiting the explosion which would shake the world.
Monique must have been living here in 1939, before her husband had been killed and the Germans had flooded across her country. As she was here now. The taxi driver would have given them the necessary directions, but Sullivan had other places to call, so Fergus said goodbye, agreed to meet the sergeant at that same spot at seven o’clock on Sunday morning, and took the taxi instead. He was too excited to delay a moment longer.
*
It was only when he had paid off the cab, and was standing on the ice-covered pavement looking at the darkened apartment building, that he realized that he really had no idea whether or not Monique was, actually, in Paris. She had only been found in July. Not quite five months ago. She might still be at a debriefing centre in England. If only Dad were here, he would have been able to find out.
But as he had come all this way...he rang the bell, holding his parcel against himself.
‘Who is there?’ asked the concierge.
‘A British officer,’ Fergus said in his best French. ‘I am looking for a Madame Monique Deschards.’
‘Is she expecting you?’
His heart leapt: she was here. ‘I think so.’
‘You will have to come up, Monsieur. There is no telephone yet, you understand. And no elevator.’
The door creaked in, and she peered at him, a woman who was not as old as she appeared; she would have been in Paris throughout the occupation, Fergus realized.
He stepped inside, and the door closed. There was no immediate difference in temperature, although a single electric light bulb glowed. What memories that must have brought back to Monique, he thought.
‘And no heating, either,’ the concierge said, climbing the uncarpeted stairs in front of him.
Fergus made no reply to that; he was not interested in heating at that moment. ‘But the building is undamaged,’ he ventured.
‘Undamaged! Ha!’
There seemed no answer to that either, so he waited while they climbed two more flights.
‘Madame Deschards has only just returned,’ the concierge said, chattily.
‘Ah,’ Fergus said.
‘No more than a week.’ They paused on a landing, and she rapped on a door with her knuckles. ‘Madame?’ the concierge called. ‘Madame? There is a gentleman here to see you. Well, an English soldier.’ She seemed to have changed her mind about the description.
‘A soldier? Just a moment.’
They waited, while Fergus tried to keep his breathing under control, then the door opened. Monique again wore a dressing gown, but this was for warmth, over a dark blue shirt and slacks, clearly hastily pulled on; thick socks were tucked into heavy carpet slippers. Her hair had grown a little since last he had seen her, and was tousled; she thrust the fingers of one hand through it as if trying to straighten it. She wore no make-up.
She stared at him for a moment, and her mouth formed a little O.
‘The bad penny always turns up,’ Fergus said, in English.
‘You know him?’ asked the concierge, in French.
‘Oui. Yes,’ Monique said, speaking both languages at once.
‘Bang on the floor if you need me,’ the concierge said, and shuffled back down the stairs.
‘She’s quite a card,’ Fergus remarked.
‘Yes.’ Monique drew a long breath, and stepped back. ‘You’d better come in.’
Fergus stepped into a neat little apartment, surprisingly well furnished. He stood in the middle of the lounge/diner, looked at heaps of books.
Monique shrugged. ‘I only got back a week ago.’
‘So the concierge told me. I’m a lucky fellow. How was the apartment?’
‘Exactly as I left it. Can you believe it? That concierge is a treasure. So I have been putting things right. I packed up all my books, you see. Now I have taken them out again...it is strange to be home, after so long.’
‘And so much,’ Fergus said without thinking, and could have bitten his tongue.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘Would you?’ He took out the bottle of brandy he had bought from the NAAFI before leaving GHQ. ‘Coals to Newcastle, I suppose.’
‘Not really. Good brandy is very expensive in Paris. Everything is very expensive, in Paris.’
‘But you’re managing?’
‘So far.’ She opened a cupboard and took out two goblets. ‘You were right; they owed me a lot of money in London. Two years’ pay. I am quite wealthy, for the moment.’
‘You’re looking well,’ he said.
She held out the glasses, and he poured. As he took his, their fingers touched, for a moment.
‘I love you,’ he said.
She gazed at him, and then sipped her drink. ‘Here’s to a merry Christmas,’ she said. ‘Is it going to be a merry Christmas?’
‘I hope so. For both of us. Will you marry me?’
She drank some more brandy. ‘Would you like some-thing to eat? I have some crepes...’
‘I’d like to take you out to dinner.’
‘That is very kind of you.’ She looked down at herself. ‘I will have to change. Will you excuse me?’
‘Of course.’
‘Have a seat...’ she hesitated. ‘No,’ she decided. ‘Come into the bedroom.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I am sure you are a gentleman, Fergus.’
Hesitantly he followed her into the bedroom. A very feminine bedroom, but with a double bed. It smelt of the perfume he remembered from Cairo.
‘Sit down in here instead,’ Monique suggested. Carefully Fergus sat on the end of the bed.
Monique took off her dressing gown, and then the rest of her clothes. She undressed with a total naturalness, without a hint of coquetry. He knew that she wanted him to look at her, and he wanted to do that; surprisingly, there were very few scars, beyond a few tiny dark patches which might have been flat moles, and if she was thinner than he remembered, she actually looked very fit.
When she was naked, she came and stood in front of him. ‘Those are burns, caused by cigarettes,’ she explained.
His head jerked. The dark spots were clustered around her nipples and, as she raised one leg, on the inside of her thighs.
‘There is not much else visible,’ she said. ‘The rest are inside.’
‘Monique...’
‘You must know these things,’ she said seriously, turning away and going into the bathroom. When she returned, she began to dress again, sitting down to roll on nylon stockings, and then adding white lace underwear, while he gazed at her. He had never actually known such intimacy with a woman before. He had watched them undress, but never dress. She was trying to establish a mood. But was the mood for him, or for herself? ‘I treated myself, in England,’ she said. ‘They gave me a whole clutch of clothing coupons, and I had all o
f that money.’ She clipped her brassiere. ‘Do you know that they are talking about giving me a medal?’ She looked at the row on his breast. ‘I wonder what colour it will be.’
She opened the wardrobe and took out a black dress. ‘I think this is the most appropriate. It is also made of wool. Do you know that this dress has hung here for four years? It has a smell of mothballs about it. Will that upset you?’
‘No,’ he said. Will you marry me?’
She held out her brandy goblet; it was empty. Would you give me another drink?’
He took the glass into the lounge, poured. She followed him, stood beside him to take the drink. ‘I have grey in my hair, now.’
‘Join the club.’
‘Will you kiss me?’
He kissed her, resting his hands lightly on her arms. ‘Oh, my darling girl,’ he said. ‘I thought you didn’t want to be touched.’
‘And you still asked me to marry you?’
‘I was happy to wait. I have waited for four years.’
‘In which time you have only seen me three times. This is the third time.’
‘I thought of you, all the time. I went looking for you, in Cairo, but you had already gone to England.’
‘I should have stayed, but I did not know you would ever come back. Did you know I had gone to work for your father?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘He knows I had met you,’ she said. ‘I told him. He was a fine old gentleman.’
‘Still is, I hope.’
‘Oh, I hope so. Do you know, I think he fancied me himself.’
‘I can imagine he did. He must have been very upset when he learned you had been taken.’ And only a few weeks later, Fergus realized, he went off to Yugoslavia, without telling a soul. He must have been very upset. ‘He will be delighted to have you as a daughter-in-law.’
‘Yes,’ she said. She finished her drink, put down the glass, and then began unbuttoning her dress. ‘Do not let’s go out to dinner, after all. Stay here with me.’
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