by Alan Evans
That was something to be proud of.
And Catherine Guillard. He glanced sidewise at her and saw her face turned up to him, the quick smile. He had thought he would never see her again. But now…
The note of the engine changed, Ward got up and helped Peyraud to stand, extended a hand to Catherine. They were closing the M.T.B.s waiting to take them aboard and hurry them home. He would be able to send a radio signal from the M.T.B.
They were a step nearer St. Nazaire and the great dock.
*
Quartermain went to the Admiralty in the early hours of the morning and paced the subterranean corridors until the signal came through. It was one laconic codeword that told him the operation had been successful. He heard it with relief but nothing more. He knew it was just another step along the way and there was still a long hard road ahead.
10: “Were you so sure?”
The M.T.B.s put them ashore at noon in a narrow creek on the Hampshire coast, near Southampton. The creek lay hidden from curious eyes in a shallow valley, at the head of which stood a big, solitary house. It was a bleak, deserted place on that winter day. They landed on a wooden jetty, at the end of which several vehicles were parked: an army three-ton truck, several cars, three ambulances. On the jetty waited doctors and medical orderlies, a general and several other officers, some with the red tabs of the staff, some naval. There were two civilians dressed sombrely in dark overcoats—and Quartermain in a bridgecoat with its collar turned up against the wind. He stared disbelievingly at Catherine Guillard with Ward’s arm about her, then said, “Good God!”
The M.T.B.s departed for their base at Portsmouth. Peyraud and the wounded were taken to the ambulances and whisked away to hospital—but not before Quartermain had spoken words of thanks to the men, and a welcome to Peyraud. “We are very glad to see you in England, Monsieur. We need you.” A captain of Royal Engineers went with Peyraud.
The general and his aide climbed into one of the cars and Madden paused at the door to look across at the Wren waiting by Quartermain’s Daimler. Madden winked at her and she smiled, then quickly opened the doors for Quartermain, Catherine and Ward. The cars and the truck carrying the commandos drove only as far as the house and halted before its door. In pre-war days it was a country hotel but now it was run by the Army, its natural seclusion reinforced by miles of barbed-wire fencing and patrolling guards. A sentry stood at the door. Catherine thought it dark and depressing.
Inside, on the ground floor, it still seemed a hotel with a large hall, an anteroom and dining-room, but the rest was given up to offices. A broad staircase led from the hall to the floor above which was a barrack, bare and austere, the right-hand wing holding rooms for officers, that on the left a dormitory and mess for other ranks.
Quartermain told Ward, “I’ll see you later. First I’ll have a word with the lady.” He took Catherine away.
Ward ate in the dining-room with Madden and the other officers, then adjourned with them to a large room with maps tacked to the walls and a long trestle table with several officers seated around it. Ward and Madden made their verbal reports which a clerk took down in shorthand. Then the cross-questioning began. There were several murmurs of approval and the general nodded vigorous agreement. To Ward, weary and impatient, it went on interminably…
Quartermain led Catherine Guillard to a small room with a desk, a chair behind it and an armchair. He settled her in the armchair, sat down behind the desk and muttered absently, “I’ll phone the Executive in a minute and get them to send some clothes for you.” That was the Special Operations Executive, the secret organisation that ‘ran’ Catherine as an agent. “We were expecting a man. Why did you do it?”
Catherine explained, as she had to Ward, that she had had no choice. He accepted that: in this war men had no monopoly on danger. There came a tap on the door and a white-coated steward entered with a meal on a tray for them. They sat in silence until he had set it down and left.
Quartermain said, “The two civilians you saw are from the Executive. They will have a lot to ask you, starting today and going on tomorrow, but first have you anything urgent to tell me?”
Catherine nodded. “Something new—and very urgent. But first, can I have a sheet of paper and a pencil?”
Quartermain got them from a drawer and she took his place at the desk and sketched quickly. “You have plans of St. Nazaire. This is the basin, here are the U-boat pens. Here is the bridge over the Old Entrance. Along this road are offices and workshops. The last building but one, here, about two hundred metres north of the bridge, is only occupied on the ground floor by the officer of the Abwehr, Hauptmann Engel, and a dozen of his men. But now the upper floor is being made into an apartment. Men of the Todt organisation are doing the work but the day I left they borrowed a carpenter from the dockyard. That evening he came to the office and said he’d overheard that the apartment was for Dönitz. He is to visit St. Nazaire and he will spend the night in that apartment.”
She went back to the armchair and sank into it. She was very tired.
The admiral frowned. “He overheard? It is talked about openly?”
Catherine explained, “Everyone knows that Dönitz will come. He does from time to time, because of the U-boat pens. That is no secret.”
Quartermain stared down at the sketch. This could be the chance they had waited for. There were enormous difficulties, not just those this girl could see but another complicating factor that she knew nothing about: CHARIOT. He asked, “When?”
“I don’t know, but I think I can find out.”
Quartermain shook his head. “No. You can’t go back again.”
“It is quite safe. My absence is explained. My chief granted me a week to visit my aunt in Paris. She is old and feeble, and real. I have done this before.”
“Landing at night in German-held territory is never safe and once you are there you are always in danger.” And the danger increased with the days; luck ran out. It had run out for other agents.
They did not argue. She was too weary and said simply, “I will return to France because she is my country. It is my right, and my duty.”
They ate then, but poorly, the girl listless and Quartermain worried for her. Afterwards the civilians from S.O.E. came in and began their questioning. It was dark when they finished for the day, the lights on and the black-out curtains drawn. Quartermain took the sketch away with him.
*
Ward escaped when the debriefing was done, the congratulations and handshakes over. He looked for Catherine in the anteroom where there was a fire and a bar now, with a steward, but she was not there nor in the dining-room beyond. Another steward asked him, “Are you dining, sir?” Ward shook his head, went back to the hall and found Quartermain in the act of shrugging on his overcoat.
The admiral glanced around to see they were not overheard then said quietly, “You’ll be glad to know that Peyraud has already told the captain of Engineers a great deal. All we want now is the necessary ship. That is difficult but Lord Louis is bringing pressure to bear.” And Mountbatten could exert considerable pressure. Quartermain went on: “I understand Boston won’t be ready for sea until Tuesday, so you still have a couple of days’ leave. Will you go up to London tomorrow?”
Ward asked, “Is Catherine going?”
“No.”
“Then I’m not. Where is she, sir?”
Quartermain picked up his cap and briefcase. “She’s gone to bed. The girl is exhausted.”
“I—hoped to see her.”
The little admiral looked at Ward scowling down on him, “You will.” He did not think it a good idea but it couldn’t be helped. He tapped the briefcase, “I’ve got a copy of your report, and Madden’s, in here. I’ve yet to read them but I’ve had a quick word with the general. You all did well, very well.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m going to London now.” To talk to the Executive about the girl. If she was going back then the sooner the better, so suspicions would not be aroused on
the other side. “I’ll be back for dinner tomorrow evening.”
So Ward had a drink with Peter Madden then went to his bed. It was narrow and uncomfortable. His kit had come down on the truck from Salisbury Plain along with that of the commandos and some steward had hung up his uniform. Ward threw the airborne forces smock and the rest of his filthy clothing into a corner. He was bone-weary but lay awake for some time, restless. When he finally slept he dreamt of the burning house and the machine-gun firing at him as he crossed the black water of the stream.
*
He was up and about early the next day but a steward told him Catherine was already with the two civilians: “Said they’d be in there all day, not to be disturbed and they’d let us know when they want coffee an’ lunch sent in, sir.”
Ward swore, ate breakfast and strode out of the house. At the gate the corporal on duty saluted and said, “‘Morning, Mr. Ward.”
“‘Morning!” Ward had never seen the man before. Had the sentries been shown photographs of himself and all the others? He didn’t know or care. He walked for miles through country lanes and returned along the Southampton road. He stopped at an old pub with a low, smoky ceiling, drank a pint of bitter and talked with the landlord. The pub was a small hotel: creaky passages and rooms with tiny latticed windows. When he got back to the house at noon there was a car waiting to take him to lunch with the C.-in-C., Portsmouth.
He swore again but there was no help for it. He went to his room and cleaned his shoes, looked in at the dining-room but Catherine was not there, climbed into the car and growled at the Wren behind the wheel, “All right, let’s get it over with.”
He spent the afternoon at Portsmouth. He was given a good lunch, questioned closely again about the raid and his account of it was heard with attention. It was impossible not to be pleased and flattered. Only in the car going back to the house did the black mood fall on him again. He sat in silence the whole way. It was snowing heavily now and the wipers flapped at the white curtain it laid on the windscreen. Despite the snow and his bad temper, as the car ground up the gravel drive of the house he apologised to the Wren with a rueful grin. “Sorry I was so bloody rude.”
She was pleased. “That’s all right, sir.”
He started to get out of the car then paused, peering through the darkness up the steps of the house. The sentry in his waterproof cape was almost hidden in the shadow of the doorway, but beside him…Ward said to the driver, “Wait a moment, will you?”
He climbed out and walked to Catherine where she stood on the steps, a coat around her shoulders, staring out at the night and the snow. No light showed in the house behind her but with his face bent close to hers he saw her smile, then the corners of her mouth drooped again.
Ward asked, “Fed up?”
Her voice was low, husky, “I want to go from this place.”
He wrapped his arm around her and led her to the car, its engine still ticking over softly, opened the rear door and said to the Wren driver, “Run us down the road, will you? My responsibility.”
The girl hesitated because it was against the rules, but only briefly. “Very good, sir.”
He climbed into the back with Catherine and held her until the low gabled shadow of the pub loomed up through the snow. The car stopped and he led her inside.
The room he took her to was close beneath the roof so Ward had to stoop under the beams. Its floor tilted and it was long and narrow with two armchairs before a log fire at one end and an oak bedstead with a big feather bed at the other. There was a tray on the table by the fire: a bottle of navy rum, glasses, and a jug of hot water. The girl drank water with the rum but Ward took it neat.
She asked, “When did you arrange this?”
“This morning. I told the chap here I was on a course and my wife was coming down. He was in the Navy in the last war—in big ships, but a nice bloke all the same.”
She was quiet for a time, then asked softly, “Were you so sure?”
“No.” He looked at her over the glass. “Were you?”
But she only smiled and went to bed with him.
*
Later he slept quietly, one arm around her. She did not sleep for a long time. She cried a little and was not sure whether it was because she was happy or sad, because in fact she was both. She finally slept with the tears still wet on her cheeks.
When Ward woke it was dark in the room except for the glow of the embers in the grate but his watch told him it was morning. He eased carefully away from the girl and out of bed, padded naked to the window, head bent beneath the beams and pulled aside the blackout curtains. The room was at the back of the house and he looked out over a mile of snow-covered heath to the sea beyond. In that first light it caught no glint of sunlight, was cold and grey.
He turned away and went to the fire, put logs on the embers and crouched there watching the small flames climb hissing on the wood. He could smell the resin in it. He wondered if this with Catherine was a mistake? He must go his way, and the girl must go hers. And yet, mistake or not, it had happened because they both wanted it to.
Quartermain would be annoyed.
To hell with Quartermain.
He heard a stir behind him, turned his head and saw Catherine awake, watching him. He rose and went back to her.
That morning they borrowed wellingtons from the landlord and went walking in the snow, threw snowballs and acted like children. Ward saw a warship far out to sea and wondered if Mountbatten would get his destroyer in time for CHARIOT. They were into March now. CHARIOT had to go by the end of this month for the tide and the darkness to be right. Time was running desperately short.
He had telephoned from the pub the previous evening and left a message at the house for Quartermain: “Tell him Mr. Ward and friend are spending the evening out.”
At noon he telephoned from the pub again and told them at the house to send the duty truck. The driver would have to get the permission of the orderly officer and he would tell Quartermain. More fuel to the flames. Ward shrugged. The truck came and at the house they had a drink at the bar then went in to eat a leisurely lunch.
They were alone in the dining-room for some time and when Quartermain came in they did not see him. He stood on the threshold, newspaper and briefcase under his arm, watching them. He said to himself, Damn, damn, damn! This was a complication he had not wanted. A half-blind man could see it, written all over their faces.
But when he went to them he only said, “So there you are…Sorry to interrupt but I must claim Catherine for some little time, things to discuss.” He did not put down his briefcase but held out The Times to Ward. “You’ll find that interesting. There’s no mention of your doings, nor will there be. That way the Germans will think we’re keeping quiet because the raid was a failure and we didn’t capture the radar as the paras did at Bruneval.”
He went off with Catherine and Ward opened the paper. The report of the Bruneval raid was there. Frost and his paratroopers had scored a spectacular success. The Würzburg radar was described as ‘a radio location unit’. All the objectives had been achieved with relatively minor casualties—and prisoners brought back too. Ward read the news with grim satisfaction. At last, here was something to cheer about after all the defeats and failures of this winter.
He took the paper through to the anteroom and settled down in an armchair to read the rest of it. The Japanese were invading Java and there was heavy fighting in the Crimea. Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit was on at the Piccadilly.
A familiar name jumped out at him: “Patrick Ward: A rare, raw new talent…” The art critic was writing of a one-man show at a London gallery and for a Times man he was wildly enthusiastic. “This first showing of Ward’s work…a dozen paintings and sketches…outstanding new talent…possible genius in khaki.” That ‘possible’ was the only hint of reservation.
Ward thought, Well, I’ll be damned! Good for Patrick!
*
Quartermain took Catherine to the small room a
nd settled her into the now familiar armchair. “How are you?”
“Very well.” She smiled at him, relaxed.
Quartermain thought about Ward but only said, “Um!” This was a complication you might always get with people, particularly young people. He could do nothing about it. “Pleased with your clothes?” Catherine wore a pleated skirt and a blue jumper. Quartermain thought she looked very nice, also very English.
“They’re lovely.” In fact she thought the clothes boring, even dowdy. The Executive had supplied them. She smiled at him. “My own from France are upstairs. Your people have laundered and pressed them. I’m very grateful.”
“You take out only what you brought in—apart from the money, of course, which the Executive will supply.” He tapped his briefcase.
“That is always useful.”
Quartermain emphasised the point: “No presents. No keepsakes.”
“None.” Catherine smiled for him again, “Don’t worry. I’m not a young, love-sick girl.”
Quartermain did worry but did not say so. “Tonight. Are you ready?”
“Yes.” The girl said that without tremor or hesitation. Quartermain unlocked the briefcase, took out a slim folder and passed it to her. “Your instructions.”
She opened the folder and began to read:
For Mlle Catherine Guillard, organiser of SPINSTER.
Operation: SPINSTER.
Field Name: GENEVIÈVE.
Name on papers: Catherine Guillard.
(1) INFORMATION
We have discussed with you, thoroughly, the possibility of your returning to France to continue the overall mission which you were originally given when you left for that country in July 1940.