‘We will march to the right,’ she repeated flatly. ‘It will take us to places that never see Our Lady.’
‘I must ask the bishop,’ said the priest.
Antoinette pointed: ‘Here is a place. You can use the telephone.’
It was a dim, low-roofed, general store. They went in, the priest, Antoinette, Gilbert and Paget. The peasants waited outside, patient and puzzled. But what the priest did was never questioned.
The shop owner, a tiny man with a gnarled face, handed the telephone from under the counter. The priest looked frightened. ‘Everything goes wrong,’ he grumbled. He took up the trumpet earpiece from its cradle. At the same moment Gilbert reached across the counter and picked up a heavy pair of scissors lying next to a ball of thick string. As the priest said: ‘L’opérateur,’ Gilbert chopped through the telephone wire.
Antoinette pushed the gun into the priest’s waist again, deeper this time. She could feel his ribs. The shopkeeper watched unaffected, as if it happened every day. ‘We turn right,’ repeated Antoinette. ‘I have no religious objection to killing you at this moment.’
The shopkeeper urged: ‘Please go from the shop and do it.’
The priest shrugged: ‘Of course we turn to the right.’
Our Lady of the North now floated above the hedgerows of the main road. The officer commanding a bicycle company of German troops heading for the invasion beaches, skidded to a stop.
Kapitän Franz Doller halted his men by shouting and holding up his hand. It was not easy because many of them were leaning earnestly over their handlebars, looking below the rims of their helmets, their equipment and rifles piled on their bent backs. The German Army was noted for its bicycle troops who could sometimes react to situations more quickly than motorised infantry or tanks, and certainly faster than men on foot.
Now the sudden halt caused collisions and a pile-up of laden soldiers behind him. Doller could not credit what he saw. The white-and-blue-robed figure was bouncing along above the hedged skyline. Cursing and pushing forward a few turns of his front wheel, he came upon the whole devout procession jammed in the confines of the high-banked road.
Doller hated the French, their perversity, their stupidity, their lack of fair play and their arrogance. Now all these emotions rose up in him at once. He almost threw his bicycle at his second in command and ran towards the crushed and bemused peasants. Antoinette, Gilbert and Paget left through the gate of a farm.
‘Halt! No further! Stop! What is this?’ demanded the kapitän.
The priest regarded him defeatedly. Surely nothing more could go wrong that day. ‘It is the annual procession of Our Lady of the North,’ he replied.
‘Get these pumpkins off the road!’ demanded the German. ‘This is an emergency! Don’t you know there has been an invasion?’
‘There was some talk,’ confessed the priest. He looked at the officer as if appealing to his better nature. ‘It will take a long time to disperse these people,’ he said. ‘I must contact the bishop.’
‘Bollocks to the bishop!’ shouted Doller. ‘Get them off the road. Over the hedges into the fields. I will make my soldiers clear a way. You French are mad.’
His second in command approached, balancing on his bicycle like an errand boy. He had news that he was hesitant about imparting. ‘What? What?’ demanded Doller.
‘There is an armoured column coming behind us, sir. Panzers,’ said the lieutenant. ‘They order us to get out of their way.’
Paget knew nothing about the house except that it was an hour’s drive away and that they said it was safe. Just in case it was not, they showed him the back staircase. As far as he could see through the ragged drawn curtains it was in open country, probably a farmhouse. When they arrived, they found that some bread and cheese and ham and several dusty bottles of red wine had been placed on the heavy kitchen table.
None of the group seemed to live there. Gilbert asked the way to the lavatory and then had to go and find it himself. Nobody said much and Gilbert and two of the others finally went away. A tall, slow man, who had been at the house when they arrived, said there was a room upstairs where Paget could rest. It was going to be a busy night. The man was not sure which door gave into the room but Paget soon found it. It was bare apart from two single beds with children’s counterpanes of cartoon ducks and rabbits, and a pair of similar curtains which sagged woefully.
He took his French labourer’s boots off gratefully and stretched on one of the beds. It just fitted him, his head and feet touching each end. Antoinette came through the planked door carrying her wineglass and a half-full bottle. ‘We must share,’ she shrugged. ‘The other rooms are busy.’
She sat on the bed opposite. She was wearing the peasant dress, none too clean. ‘Where is this place?’ he asked.
Again she shrugged. ‘A house. Somewhere. We will only be here a few hours.’
She began to laugh, something he had not seen her do before. She had fine teeth in a handsome mouth. ‘That German officer today. The one with the bicycles. Nothing is so ridiculous as soldiers on bicycles.’
Paget smiled from his stretched-out position. ‘It certainly worked. I wonder how long they were delayed?’
‘Not long enough,’ she said seriously. ‘I hate those bastards, you know. I hate them with everything I have. For me there is no difference between those who say they are Nazis and those who say they are only Germans. They are the same. I hate them all.’
‘What about your husband?’
Looking aggrieved, she said sulkily: ‘He is not my husband. He is just useful.’
She poured some wine into her glass. ‘You have no glass,’ she said. ‘You must share mine.’ She handed it to him and he drank and then handed it back. He lay down again. She leaned a little towards him. ‘These men, the Boche, you can see what they have done to my country. They have been raping this country since 1940.’ She looked at him steadily. ‘Since the British ran away and left us.’
‘You think we ran away?’
‘Where were you hiding then? The beach at Dunkirk was empty when the Boche arrived. The British had gone.’
‘It’s just as well,’ he argued. ‘Or we would all be under the Nazis now.’
She put the glass on the floor and held up her hands. ‘Don’t let us have a small war between ourselves. Not now. Now the invasion has happened.’
He had asked as soon as they had reached the house if there was any news. No one knew. Now he asked again.
‘We have some,’ she said. ‘But it is too early. The Americans have suffered many dead on the beaches, but they won’t lose. They are too strong.’
‘What about the British?’
‘Nothing of the British,’ she said. Then with a surprising smile she added: ‘Except for you. And you are here.’
She moved across to his bedside and studied his rough working clothes. ‘The bleu de travail does not suit you. You still look English.’
Almost as if her mind was far away, she began casually to undo the metal buttons on the front of the rough blue trousers, tut-tutting like a mother when one proved difficult. She did not look at him but seemed to find something interesting in the pattern of the bedspread. ‘Canard et lapin,’ she muttered dreamily. Paget lay back and watched her.
Still as though she was not following what she was doing, she opened the front of the trousers and pushed in her long fingers and then her hand. She went down to his groin and cupped him in her hand. She lifted her peasant skirt and grubby white petticoat, pulled away a pair of cotton drawers, and climbed on top of him.
Not a word came from either of them. It was as though there was nothing to say. She manoeuvred and slid him inside her and eased herself to and fro, her eyelids drooping as though she were going to sleep. Finally they closed altogether.
She had remained sitting on him, thighs spread, but after it was done, she fell forward across his chest, her heavy breasts below her country blouse lying on him. They had not even kissed. Then she mumbled: �
��We must sleep now for a little, Monsieur Anglais. We have Germans to kill tonight.’
By nine thirty that evening she had shot two German soldiers dead. They were guarding a signal-box and when the French party moved in along the hedgerows in the dusk they caught them having a sly smoke. Antoinette shot them without pausing. The cigarettes were still smouldering as they lay on the ground.
A frightened Frenchman appeared at the top of the ladder to the signal-box, his railway hat hastily donned for recognition. ‘Français,’ he told them, to make sure. A companion peered fearfully around the door of the box. There were three other men in the attacking group, but Antoinette was in command. She told the signalmen to come down the steps and go to a safe distance and remain there. They did so, looking doubtfully over their shoulders.
The resistance men disabled the signal-box controls. ‘To blow it up would be nice,’ said Antoinette. ‘But it would be heard several kilometres away.’
She said to Paget: ‘Come with me, now.’ She looked at home, happy, carrying the sub-machine-gun.
Between the railway line and the road where he guessed they would pick up their next transport, was a building that looked like a school. ‘Two more targets,’ said Antoinette as she pointed towards the road. He could see the excitement bubbling in her. She would miss the war when it was over. ‘The next in only half an hour,’ she said.
As they approached the school building they heard the surprising sound of a brass band. Both halted in the shadows. Antoinette slid to a window and cautiously looked in through an aperture in the curtain. ‘Germans,’ she said with a warm smile.
Paget followed her to the window and looked in. There were a dozen bandsmen and their instruments grouped in a circle with a rotund bandmaster in a grey uniform. He was speaking to them with his baton raised. Paget had a view of several of them. They were all youths, little more than boys, some bespectacled, intent on their sheets of music.
Antoinette crooked her finger. With deepening dread he realised what she was going to do. He touched, then lightly held her arm but she shook him off fiercely. The first exterior door she tried opened. He felt his body trembling. They were in a corridor. The sound of the brass music came to them more loudly. Now they were outside the room. She put her hand in her bag and brought out a grenade. Paget, almost sick with horror, whispered: ‘No. No.’
She had a wild look and she turned it on him. ‘Go,’ she snarled. ‘Get out.’
Then she opened the door of the classroom. He had a moment’s glimpse of the musicians in their circle, then she pulled the pin, shouted: ‘Bonsoir,’ tossed in the grenade and closed the door. In seconds there was a shattering explosion. The door bulged and splintered, a window along the corridor fell in. Calmly Antoinette produced another grenade.
‘No!’ Paget shouted at her. ‘They’re boys! Just children!’
She glared and said: ‘Nazis.’
She pulled the pin from the second grenade and dragged the damaged door half open. Paget attempted to stop her and his intervention caused the grenade to hit the door and bounce like a ball back into the corridor. He tried to fall away from it. She staggered in the other direction. It ignited with a massive flash and an explosion that seemed to burst his ears. Choking smoke filled the corridor. He realised his arm was hanging off. Blood was spurting on the floor. The arm was almost separated from his body. ‘Antoinette!’ he cried.
His eyes went blank. His head was full of smoke. He heard voices, French voices, and then knew nothing until he woke briefly in the back of a speeding car. ‘Antoinette,’ he repeated. There was blood all over him, blood-soaked towels on his shoulder.
‘Elle est morte,’ said a casual voice. ‘We can get you to help. Do you want us to keep your arm, monsieur?’
Chapter Twenty-five
That same night Harris and his men rested in a farmyard after the longest day any of them had ever known. Guns still sounded not far away and they heard planes shuttling overhead, but their battle seemed to have ended for the day, as work does, and they could rest. On the five invasion beaches 2,500 Allied soldiers had been killed.
‘Oi never want to do that again,’ said Blackie profoundly. ‘That coming up that beach. Better goin’ over the bloody hill than that.’
Warren said tiredly: ‘Which ’ill be that?’
‘Desertin’, I mean,’ said Blackie. ‘Goin’ over the ’ill, loike they Yanks say. It were scareful, Bunny, weren’t it?’
‘None of us got ourselves shot,’ muttered Warren. ‘Jerry kept missin’ us.’
‘They ’it some blokes just up the beach,’ put in Treadwell. ‘Dropped as soon as they jumped ashore, poor buggers. All that trainin’, then gettin’ your lot like that.’
There were rumours reaching the farmyard. There was a German armoured division straight ahead at Caen, the Canadians were halfway to Paris, the French were fighting the French.
‘The Yanks got a pounding, lots killed,’ said an artilleryman from the next field. ‘We got off light.’ He asked if they knew where they could buy some eggs. He had some francs.
It was the run-in to the beach that had been so terrifying. Hardly a word had been spoken among the men going to the shore as the landing-craft had moved away from the troop transport. It was five miles and it took almost an hour. They were cold and wet and some were seasick; few said anything. Blackie had begun to whistle in a thin, irritating manner, but he was told to shut up. ‘Bad luck whistling in boats,’ Gordon pointed out. ‘In Scotland, anyway.’
Because of the high sides of the vessel they could not see what was happening around them, only guess. As the dawn widened above their heads the noise of the invasion fleet filled the air, the pounding engines, the wash of the craft, then the shuddering big guns of the British heavy warships far out to sea.
‘I ’ope they navy blokes got their range right,’ grunted Warren. ‘Don’t fancy that lot comin’ down on my ’ead ’afore we even get on the sands.’
They heard the high-explosive shells whistle and whoosh above them and the landing-craft seemed to stagger through the choppy water. Explosions echoed from the land. They could see some of the Allied planes as they roared across the visible patch of sky.
‘No sign of Jerry,’ said Harris, looking up.
There was a steel-helmeted man in the bow, staring out towards the shore.
‘What’s it like, mate?’ somebody among the crowded men called to him.
‘Gettin’ lighter,’ said the man.
‘I meant what’s going on, not a weather report. We can all see the bloody sky. It’s about all we can see.’
‘All right, all right,’ said the bowman. ‘Don’t take offence.’
‘Don’t take offence,’ whispered a soldier crouching next to Harris. ‘That’s what we’re supposed to bleedin’ do, take offence. For Christ’s sake, that’s why we’re here.’
The bowman called back: ‘Well, from ’ere I can see mostly barrage balloons,’ he related loudly. ‘All over the ships. ’Undreds of the buggers. Then there’s ’undreds of boats, landing-craft like this and bigger jobs, all over the place. And right back you can see the guns flashing. No sign of Jerry, though. Keeping ’is ’ead down, I ’spect. Maybe ’e’s gone ’ome.’
He had scarcely spoken when there was an explosion to one side of the craft and then another, even closer, which sent cascades of sea water flying over the sides. The men were thrown sideways as the helmsman at the back tried to turn the ungainly boat.
‘Now Jerry can see us,’ said Treadwell.
They heard orders crackling over the air waves to the helmsman. Abruptly the barrage from the shore increased. The boat rocked and shuddered. They could hear the small-arms fire hitting the side of the landing-craft as they crouched, faces taut, holding their rifles, ready to jump.
‘Come on, come on,’ Gordon kept saying. ‘Let’s get there. Stuck out here like sitting ducks.’
‘Three ’undred yards … two fifty … two ’undred,’ called the man at the bo
w.
With a big jerk the craft slewed, then came back on course. ‘This beach is mined,’ an officer somewhere shouted reassuringly. ‘Follow the red markers the advance engineers are putting down. I hope.’
‘There’s a lot of guesswork,’ muttered Treadwell. ‘I thought they had it all worked out. I’m going to write and complain.’
‘You do that, Treadie,’ said May. His face was grey.
Gannick was chewing the stem of his pipe. Peters was trying not to cry.
The landing-craft abruptly slid up the beach, jolting and slewing again, sending the men off balance, backing off with the waves and finally being almost flung on the shore.
‘Everybody out!’ shouted the bowman. ‘Any more for the Skylark?’
‘That’s what they used to shout on the beach at Southsea,’ mumbled Harris irrationally. ‘When I was a kid. “Any more for the Skylark?’”
The ramp at the front of the craft clanged down. The first man jumped and then they all disgorged from the vessel. It was swiftly and well done but it seemed as though it took an eternity. Harris was praying his ankle would not collapse and he lowered himself to the shore in an almost elderly, careful way.
It was bedlam all along the beach. In the early light he was aware of the boats, hundreds of boats, on the shoreline and those still coming in. One was on fire and going madly around in circles. Men were jumping into the sea. Another had run over its own troops as they landed. There were bodies in the water. Smoke rolled over the morning sky. And all to the chorus of the guns of the big ships out at sea. Men were running, or trying to run, under various burdens up the crumbling beach towards the shelter of the first sand-dunes. There were soldiers carrying guns and bicycles. Harris saw Treadwell pause to wipe the sand from his glasses. What the hell was a man who wore glasses doing there?
It was difficult to spot any others of his own squad among the confusion. There was some small-arms fire throwing up the sand to his left and then some bigger explosions erupted on the waterline. Bodies were lying in the shallows and more halfway to the sand-dunes. Suddenly Blackie appeared at his side.
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