‘Ah . . .’ It felt like a physical blow to his heart; the breath seemed to have been knocked from his body. He stood, head bowed, in choked silence, unable to speak.
‘Yes, I’m sorry. It’s a jolly bad show.’ The lieutenant touched his cap, moving away. ‘We’ll be in touch, Monsieur Duval. The ferry operates from the slipway just along there if you want to go across to Dartmouth and find a bank.’
He finished off his cognac and then poured more. Clear images passed through his mind of Nazi troops marching down the Champs-Elysées and all the civilization and history and culture and beauty of his beloved country being crushed beneath the brutal stamp of jackboots. He sat for a long while in the boat, drinking and smoking and thinking, the cat beside him.
With an effort, he roused himself. It was still too early for a bank to be open in the town but he might as well go over and take a look around. He left the cat chewing at a last piece of sausage and walked to the head of the ferry slipway. The few people he passed seemed untroubled, even cheerful, without a care in the world. Most of them, he supposed, would have no idea of how grave the situation was, how terrible the might of Hitler’s forces. A few miles of sea had lulled them into thinking themselves safely out of reach. They had not yet, of course, been truly tested. That was still to come.
He could see the river ferry on the opposite bank and leaned against the wall in the sunshine, smoking a Gauloise while he waited for it to come back, and watching the seagulls scavenging at the water’s edge. His thoughts returned to Paris. To Germans strutting round the streets, gorging themselves in the restaurants, drinking at the bars, strolling in the parks, leering at the women, swarming like vermin over the city while Parisians stood meekly by. He was very glad that he was not there to witness the humiliation. And what of Simone? How would she fare? Who is going to be buying handbags and scarves? The Germans. For their wives and girlfriends. One must be practical.
The ferry came back and he walked up the gangway, proffering one of Madame Hillyard’s coins for the fare and receiving several more different ones in return. The journey across took only five minutes or so and he stood in the bows, looking upstream towards the green hills and fields and woods of Devon where the river curved gently away out of sight. The shops in the town were still closed, also the two cafés he passed, and the several pubs, and the bank, too. In France, he thought regretfully, the cafés, at least, would have been open. Alphonse would have been setting out chairs and wiping tables and there would have been strong coffee and freshly baked bread.
One shop was open – selling newspapers and cigarettes and violently coloured English sweets. He bought a Daily Express with one of the coins he had acquired from the ferryboat man and took it to read on a bench by the harbour. The Germans’ entry into Paris was not yet reported but there was other equally depressing news. Their army was racing across France and meeting little or no resistance. There were unedifying accounts of French soldiers throwing away their arms and fleeing south. The Government had decamped first to Tours and now to Bordeaux. Prime Minister Reynaud was expected to resign shortly and the armistice-seeking Marshal Pétain and his supporters were in the ascendant. None of it surprised him in the least; all of it dismayed him. There was an article by an English journalist warning that the French Navy should not be allowed to fall into German hands – he read it with particularly close attention.
When the bank had finally opened, he went to queue at the counter and, as his turn came, smiled winningly at the middle-aged woman behind the grille. She smiled back, patting her coil of greying hair into place, but his request to change French francs into English money caused consternation. Apparently she would have to talk to someone about it, and she hurried away to do so. Presently an elderly man wearing an old-fashioned suit and a starched wing collar emerged and introduced himself as the manager. Duval gave his name and found himself being ushered into his office and offered a seat in front of an immense mahogany desk. The manager cleared his throat.
‘I’m afraid there may be a slight problem about changing your French francs into sterling. I shall have to refer the matter to our Plymouth office. With the present situation so delicate, it may well be out of the question – much as we should like to help you. You do understand?’
The poor fellow was looking quite upset. He said reassuringly, ‘Oh, yes, I understand perfectly. France is falling, and, with her, the franc.’
‘Exactly how much currency had you in mind?’
He gave the substantial figure and the manager shook his head. ‘I very much doubt they would be prepared to consider anything like that amount. But I’ll do my best for you.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Have you just come across from France?’
‘Indeed I have.’
‘How are things over there – if you don’t mind my asking?’
He smiled inwardly at the mind. ‘Not at all. Things are very bad. Which is why I have chosen to come here. I’m afraid that my country will soon surrender completely to the Germans. Perhaps within a week.’
‘We’re rather afraid of that too.’
‘Then you English will be on your own.’
‘Yes, we will.’ The manager didn’t seem at all alarmed by the idea – in fact, he looked rather pleased about it. ‘Do you have some sterling to keep you going?’
‘A little.’
‘Well, I’ll do the best I can. If you could tell me where you are staying, I’ll be in touch as soon as possible.’
I’m getting to be quite popular, he thought drily. The Royal Navy and now the bank manager are going to be in touch with me. He was shown to the door courteously and the manager shook his hand.
‘Good luck, Monsieur Duval.’
He smiled. ‘I think it’s you English who are going to need the luck now.’
He walked back to the ferry, passing two girls in some kind of female naval uniform – rather chic, in fact. He particularly liked the black stockings.
Back on the other side of the river, he found that the falling tide had left his boat high and dry. The cat had jumped down onto the mud and was chewing away at a dead fish. He lit a cigarette and reviewed his situation. Four English pound notes in his wallet and a pocketful of coins; the remainder all in French francs that might prove worthless to him. No passport, so it was necessary to stay put until it was returned to him. No identity card either. There was no going back, in any case. The whole of France, not just Paris, was on the point of surrender – within a week, he had said to the bank manager, who had thought so too. Well, he might as well get out his paints and do some work. He might even be able to sell it.
Three
Lieutenant Commander Alan Powell left his desk at the Admiralty and walked the short distance to Pall Mall. He walked briskly, as he usually did, striding along at a good pace so that he arrived at the entrance to the club rather sooner than he had intended – ten minutes earlier than the time arranged, in fact. The porter took his service cap and respirator.
‘Commander Chilcot is already here, sir. I’ll tell him that you’ve arrived.’
He waited in the hall and presently his host came down the staircase, hand outstretched. Rather more grey hairs now – like himself – but otherwise little changed. ‘Good to see you, Alan. Too long since we last met, don’t you agree? Let’s go and get a drink before we have lunch.’
The club room upstairs had deep, well-worn leather armchairs and sofas, oak panelling hung with impressive oil paintings and fine Georgian windows, somewhat marred by criss-crossed strips of anti-bomb blast paper. A waiter shuffled over, stooped with age.
‘Pink gin, Alan? Or do you drink something else these days?’
‘No, the same, thanks.’
He still stuck to the old wardroom drink, out of habit. Gin, angostura, no ice. They raised glasses to each other. How long was the too long, he wondered? Five or six years at least and probably more. During the peace between the two wars, they’d met occasionally at the odd function and they’d had lunches
, like this one, a few times, but Harry had a wife and four children and had been posted for some considerable time to the Far East. The bond of friendship, though, had somehow held since their time at Osborne and later Dartmouth. The men that were boys when I was a boy. That shared experience made it virtually unbreakable.
They’d been eleven when they’d first met at the Royal Naval College at Osborne. Same entry, same age, same passion for the sea – a lot in common in those days. At thirteen they’d gone on to Dartmouth together – four years of rigorous discipline intended to bring about their eventual metamorphosis into naval officers: intensive instruction, exams, strenuous exercise, sailing up and down the Dart – the two of them cox and crew in the same dinghy, both revelling in their seamanship. They’d done their stint in the college training ship Vindictive together and passed out together, rising from midshipman to sub lieutenant as they continued their training at Greenwich and Portsmouth and Chatham and at sea, and then, finally, to full-blown lieutenant with their two stripes so arduously won and so proudly worn.
After that their paths had diverged. They had served on different ships in the Great War and in different theatres. He had been so confident then of the future – of rising, in time, to the top of the Service – until his own life had changed course suddenly and radically when his ship had engaged in action with a German cruiser. He’d been in one of the gun turrets when an enemy shell had scored a hit, wounding him badly in the arm and chest. The exploding shell had also started a major fire close by and he’d managed to stop it spreading and get the damn thing put out before he’d collapsed. Unfortunately, the effect on himself had been longer-lasting. The ship’s surgeon had saved his arm but the damage done had put him in hospital for a long time. Infection, complications, setbacks, more operations on his arm, another on alung . . . months of convalescence.
They’d let him stay on in the Navy – courtesy of strings pulled by his father – even given him a medal for doing what he had only considered to be his duty in action, but, meanwhile, others had passed him by and the high-flying career that might have been – that he had always strived for and counted on – was virtually finished. He’d instructed at shore training establishments for a while, been given another promotion, and then, eventually, sidelined, like a shunted engine, into a desk job at the Admiralty. He had schooled himself to accept the fact, to make the best of things, and, for the most part, he had succeeded. The outbreak of another war, though, had brought him face to face with the painful truth that he had no real active part to play in it. At forty-six, he could still have served his country in some useful capacity – something rather better, he knew, than moving papers from an in-tray to an out-tray.
‘How’ve things been with you, Alan?’
‘Fine, thanks.’
‘Admiralty keeping you busy?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘They’ve put me in dry dock too, you know. Not what I wanted, as you can imagine, but there’s not much one can do about it. I’d’ve given my eye teeth for another command in this war but it doesn’t look like there’s any chance of it. Still, one can make oneself useful. As a matter of fact, that’s what I wanted to have a chat with you about, but it can wait till after we’ve had some lunch. The menu’s not what it was these days, I’m afraid, but I suppose we mustn’t grumble.’
It was not unlike the sort of food they used to eat at Osborne and Dartmouth: cottage pie and steamed chocolate pudding with custard. They talked of those far-off days – as they usually did. He was never quite sure whether he saw them through rose-coloured spectacles, but he certainly remembered them as happy days when the future had seemed so full of promise and bound eternally to the sea. And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by. He still sailed, of course. Not a tall ship but a small one that he kept at Maldon in Essex. At the time of Dunkirk he’d moved heaven and earth to take her across himself and help bring back the troops from the beaches, but he’d been refused leave to do so. A bitter pill to swallow.
‘Haven’t gone and got yourself spliced since we last met, Alan, have you?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘I recommend it – if you ever meet the right woman.’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’ It was advice he had been given many times by many people and regularly by his older sister, but he’d never met anything like the right woman. During their time at Greenwich, Harry had owned a Morris 8tourer and whenever possible had roared off to parties in London. Sometimes he’d gone along too, but Harry had always been more at ease in female company than himself. And then the blow to his expected career had also dealt a resulting blow to his self-esteem, and he’d pretty much given up on the whole idea.
‘Still . . . there’s something to be said for being footloose and fancy free. A lot of married chaps probably envy you. Are you still in Dolphin Square?’
‘Yes, still there.’ The small flat suited him. There was a very pleasant view over the river, porters, a restaurant, tennis courts, a swimming pool. If the weather was fine, he sometimes walked to work for the exercise. It helped to keep him fit. And a private, inherited income ensured that there would never be any great money worries.
They returned to the leather chairs for coffee and a smoke, Harry leading him to a quiet corner of the room, away from other members. He wondered what precisely he wanted to have a chat about.
‘What are your views on France, Alan?’
He said, surprised, ‘France? Well, the same as most people’s, I suppose. They’re in a tight corner and they seem to be giving up.’
‘The word is that they’ll only hold out for four or five more days.’
‘More than likely. Thank God we didn’t let them have any more of our fighter squadrons over there. We’re going to need every one of them ourselves.’
‘I’m afraid so. Once they’ve taken France, the Germans will be giving us their full and undivided attention.’
‘I almost look forward to it.’
‘Me, too. Still, it’s going to be pretty tough. They have most of the advantages at the moment. Superior forces, armament, experience . . . they’re on a winning streak. Apparently unstoppable.’
‘They’ll find the Channel and the Navy will slow them up a bit. And they’d have to do something about the RAF.’
‘Very true. We do hold the odd card. Fortunately. The thing is, Alan, that one thing we don’t have is good first-hand intelligence about the situation now in France. If the Germans are planning to invade us from there we need warning – where, when, how. At least seventy-two hours’ warning, to be precise. That’s what I’ve been told. The Prime Minister has given an order. We’re to send agents over there and find out exactly what the Germans are up to, and get the information back as quickly as possible. It’s vital. And there’s another aspect. We know that France is going to fall and that the Germans will then have the use of all those excellent North Atlantic ports. We, and the RAF, are going to need to know as much as possible about German naval movements – especially about the U-boats.’
‘Surely the Secret Intelligence Service already has contacts over there?’
‘Unfortunately not. Nothing to speak of. Apparently things were allowed to run down badly after the end of the last war. There have been all kinds of problems – underfunding, betrayals, no new recruiting, bad security, not taking enough notice of what the Nazis were cooking up in the Thirties. The SIS gave no warning of German preparations to invade Poland, you know. Incredible! And they had some ludicrous gentlemen’s agreement with the Service de Renseignements not to conduct espionage in France. It means starting pretty much from scratch. Recruiting, training, briefing agents, finding ways to get them in and out of German occupied territory.’
He frowned. ‘It sounds quite a tall order.’
‘It is. That’s rather where you come in, Alan. At least, I hope so.’
‘Me? I don’t quite see . . .’
‘No, I didn’t suppose you would.’ Harry tapped the ash off his ci
garette. ‘The point is, I’ve been roped in to help set things up as far as the seaborne landing attempts are concerned – to co-ordinate various departments and do a spot of recruiting myself to find chaps who I think could do a good job. I thought of you. I know that you can be trusted one hundred per cent. No question of that. You’re a first-class sailor. You speak good French, if I remember correctly. And you know Brittany rather well, don’t you?’
‘Reasonably.’
‘Your family always used to take summer holidays over there – right?’
‘Well, yes . . .’ His parents had rented a Breton farmhouse for years and they’d cycled all over the peninsula, exploring. He’d made friends with two French brothers in the village, close to his own age who spoke no English and, in later years, he had gone back several times on his own to visit the family. ‘But, Christ, I haven’t been there for a long time, Harry, and my French must be pretty rusty. I don’t think I’m your man.’
Harry grinned. ‘I wasn’t suggesting landing you in France, Alan. You’d stick out like a sore thumb. I want you to help me set up an organization down in Dartmouth and get things going. At the moment, we haven’t got any naval high-speed craft with the range and speed to penetrate further south than Brest, which leaves submarines as a possibility. They’d be ideal for sneaking in and out but, as you can imagine, most of them are otherwise occupied at the moment. As luck would have it, though, events have been playing into our hands. Quite a number of Breton fishing vessels have been doing a bunk across the Channel – they’ve been turning up at Falmouth and their crews want to stay. It seems they don’t think too much of the prospect of fishing for the Germans.’
‘I don’t blame them.’
‘Nor I. And you see how handy they could be? We could use them. A genuine Breton trawler complete with a crew of genuine Breton fishermen, plus a hand-picked addition of ours, coming and going without suspicion.’
He said doubtfully, ‘The Germans aren’t fools.’
‘Of course they aren’t, but then neither are we. It needs very careful planning, of course. Attention to every detail, tight security, brave men. We have to try, Alan, or we’ll be playing blind man’s bluff, not knowing where the hell the Germans are going to strike or what they’re playing at. We have to get agents on the ground. The RAF think they could make a parachute drop by night, or even land a plane, but they need time to experiment and practise – and time’s something we don’t have. The Admiralty resources are stretched to the limit and they can’t spare us much help. It’s got to be done on a shoestring at the moment. That’s one reason why the Breton fishing boats are the answer to our prayers. So, what do you say? Will you join us?’
Those in Peril Page 5