by William Boyd
I took a photograph of them both and then left them to return to Loomis at company HQ, which was now established in an old villa on the outskirts of town. My kit was there and my typewriter. Loomis had allowed his frown to relax and passed on new instructions, namely that I was to motor up to a place called Le Muy, some miles inland, to cover the effects of the air- and glider-borne landings.
“Seems there’s some colonel in the Five-oh-ninth from San Diego,” Loomis said. “He’s heard you’re here and wants a lot of local coverage back home.” He looked at me curiously. I continually had to remind myself that I was twenty years older than Loomis.
“Where’re you from, Todd?”
“Edinburgh, Scotland.”
“Yeah? What’s your paper called?”
“The Chula Vista Herald-Post. That’s the biggest one I work for.”
“Good God.” He shook his head. “You got a driver and a jeep outside. Why don’t you check with him about tomorrow?”
I went out into the garden. It was overgrown with mimosa, tamarind and lavender bushes. The night was very warm. Across the bay I could see some fires still burning in Ste.-Maxime. The flames looked pretty on the water.
I found my jeep but there was no sign of the driver. I looked round and saw someone crouched over a lavender bush.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Oh yes, sir.”
He stood up. He was tall and well built. I could not make out his features in the dark. His voice sounded educated. He inhaled ostentatiously.
“Have you smelled the air here, sir?” We inhaled deeply together. “Pines, eucalyptus, lavender … intoxicating.”
He handed me a small bunch of lavender.
“Smell that.”
I did. The scent was so strong it seemed as if I had inhaled a fine powder. I sneezed.
“Excuse me, but are you my driver?”
“If you’re John James Todd of the Chula Vista Herald-Post, I am.”
“I am indeed. What’s your name?”
“Private Brown, sir.”
“What’s your first name? And there’s no need to call me sir. I’m a civilian.”
“It’s Two Dogs Running.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Two Dogs Running. I’m a Cherokee. A Cherokee Indian to you. A redskin, in case you were wondering.” His tone was pleasantly, inoffensively ironic.
I didn’t get a proper look at Two Dogs Running until the next day. We rendezvoused at the company HQ villa after I had written and filed my invasion report for the Dusenberry papers. Two Dogs, as I came to call him, was young—in his early twenties—tall and solid looking. He had a classic hooked nose and thin eyes. His black hair had been shaved to a stubbly crew cut.
“Morning, Mr. Todd,” he said. “Another beautiful day.”
We drove off, overtaking long columns of trucks and marching men that were moving inland from the beachhead. Shortly after lunch we were in Plan-de-la-Tour, where a lieutenant in the 157th RCT assured us that the road to Le Muy was clear. There had been a linkup that morning with patrols from the 509th Airborne.
We motored off. It was a badly paved road with dusty verges. The hills round us were covered in scrub and new plantations of pine trees. On either side we could see huddled dun and orange-pink villages, small farms and olive groves. The blue sky above was scarred with thin salty contrails of the Marauders and Liberators flying in from their bases in Corsica and Sardinia.
“You see that air raid last night?” Two Dogs asked. “Spectacular, wasn’t it?”
There had been an air attack on the ships lying off St.-Tropez. The sky had been hot with searchlights and tracers for a good five minutes. Two Dogs told me a plane had been shot down, but I had seen nothing. We bumped along the road. An old lady in black sat beneath an olive tree tending some goats. She waved as we passed. Everything was tranquil and calm; I reflected on how easy it was for the world to swallow up a war.
“You’d pay a lot for a vacation like this,” Two Dogs said.
“Aren’t we lucky.”
“Where are you from, Mr. Todd?”
“Edinburgh. Edinburgh, Scotland.”
“How come you’re working for the Chula Vista Herald-Post?”
“It’s an incredibly long story.” I changed the subject. “Where are you from?”
“New Mexico. Little town called Platt.”
“Really? I made a film in New Mexico earlier this year.”
“You’re kidding. What’s it called?”
“The Equalizer.”
Two Dogs stopped the jeep. “You made The Equalizer?”
“Yes.”
“I saw it! Christ. Just before I came overseas. It’s playing everywhere, congratulations.”
“Is it?” I thought for a moment. I had left New York for Casablanca in mid-June. Eddie must have opened it earlier than he had planned. I felt vague alarm. How come I had to find out about this traveling in a jeep in the South of France?
Two Dogs restarted the engine and we set off again. I listened to him recount various episodes in my film. He had a good grasp of its implications.
“What did you do before you enlisted?” I asked.
“Traveling salesman. Perfumes and cosmetics.”
“Hence the lavender.”
We talked some more: about films, about scents, about Two Dogs’ ambitions for his career. He was a college graduate and the unspoken question hedged itself in between us.
“How come you’re—”
“In the motor pool? They don’t give commissions to pesky red varmints, Mr. Todd.”
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with being a private. I was one too.”
“No shit? When?”
“The Great War, 1914–18.” My God, I thought, that was only twenty-six years ago! I felt my age clamber onto my shoulders like the old man of the sea. Two Dogs was twenty-two.… We carried on talking as we drove through the hot shimmering landscape. I liked the big dark man with his wry educated views. We discussed The Equalizer further. The invasion. The Riviera. Two Dogs had just asked me if I had read Ernest Hemingway when the jeep broke down.
We had come down out of the hills and were in a small wooded valley with a dried-up riverbed running through it. The Argens Valley, I guessed, consulting my map. I calculated that we were about seven miles from Le Muy. The next bend in the road was obscured by a wood of cork oak trees, their stripped trunks a fresh ocher. Two Dogs checked the engine and said there was something wrong with the fuel pump. I looked at the map once more.
“There’s a small village up the road. If we are where we think we are.”
Two Dogs took his carbine out of the back of the jeep and we set off. It was midafternoon and now, deprived of the early cooling breeze of the jeep’s progress, we felt the full heat of the sun. After half a mile I wished I had left my helmet behind. I carried it dangling from its strap like a tureen and thought seriously about throwing it away. It was very quiet. The metallic sawing of the cicadas only emphasized the stillness.
The hamlet—Castel Dion—consisted of a few houses, some barns and a semiderelict church. There was no prospect of getting our fuel pump repaired here. We walked down the main street. A small patient crowd was gathered at the far end round an overturned lorry. As we approached, an old man advanced to meet us.
“Écossais?” he asked.
I looked at him in frank astonishment. “What?”
“Américains” Two Dogs said, pointing to the flag on my shoulder. The old man led us over to the lorry. The crowd of villagers parted to reveal several dead bodies, some badly scorched. They wore German uniforms but they were swarthy dark-skinned Arabs of the Ost Legion. They had been dead for hours, since the morning, probably. The spilled blood was black, coagulated like treacle. Flies were everywhere. The few inhabitants of Castel Dion seemed incapable of doing anything about this morbid visitation but stare.
“Who did this?” I asked the old man.
“Sept Écoss
ais,” he said. “Les paras.” Then he proceeded to describe the incident with many French gestures and sound effects. “Paf! Pan-pan-pan! Boum! Claque! Finis. Bof!” He dusted his palms.
I knew from the pre-invasion briefing that the only British troops taking part in Operation Dragoon were paratroopers, of the 2nd Independent Paratroop Brigade. I assumed some roving unit had been responsible for this ambush.… But were they Scottish paratroopers?… And I had no idea what to do about the dead men. I consulted Two Dogs, who suggested we get the jeep fixed first. I explained the problem to the old man, who led us back into the village and pointed to a road that led through some vineyards. Ask at the villa, he said. Two Dogs and I set off. Beyond the vineyards was an avenue of cypress trees and at the end of this two stone gateposts—no gate—with a name carved on them: VILLA GLADYS.
“Villa Gladys,” Two Dogs read. “Jesus. Does everything feel normal to you?” He looked at his carbine. “I mean, I’m a terrible shot.… Suppose it’s a trap?” He handed me the gun. “Why don’t you take this?”
“No, no. Absolutely not. I’m never touching guns again. I swore, after the last war—things that happened, you know.” I smiled uneasily. “Look, we’re miles from the fighting. I’m sure everything’s fine.” I was trying not to think of the last time I had fired a gun: 1917. The Salient. My drowning Ulsterman.
We walked cautiously through the gates and down the drive. Here and there discarded parachutes hung in the trees like huge limp flowers, or were draped over the rubble retaining walls of the vineyards like giant dying fungi. Then in a field we saw the splintered wreckage of half a dozen plywood Waco gliders. We turned a corner and there was the Villa Gladys, a small stone château with a roofless round tower. Laid out neatly on the edge of the graveled forecourt were five bodies covered in blankets. An old man holding a rake and an old woman looked aimlessly at them. When she saw us coming she ran into the house and emerged with another old man. Tall and erect, he wore a linen jacket, a shirt with a collar and tie, and baggy canvas trousers and sandals. A fine tracery of burst capillaries reddened his nose and cheeks. Wiry gray hair was badly combed over his bald head. If I hadn’t known better I would have assumed he was English.
“Nous sommes Américains,” I began.
“Thank Christ for that,” he said. “You come to take these chaps away? One of the gliders broke up pretty badly.”
“You’re English,” I said. “Good God!”
He looked at me shrewdly. “And you’re no Yank, I’ll wager. Not with that accent.”
“No,” I said. “No. I’m … I’m Scottish.” I don’t know why but I felt there was something baleful about my nationality that day. Six years in America hadn’t seen so many inquiries about it.
“We had some Scottish paras land on us the night before last,” he said. He gestured at the bodies. “One of them’s there. Fell right into my cucumber frames. Cut his throat. The other chappies cleared off before the gliders arrived.” He contemplated the wrecked machines. “Made a fucking awful mess of my vineyards.” He smiled. “Still, glad to see you. Perhaps you can help me with another problem.”
We wandered round the side of the château past an empty swimming pool. The old man told me his name was Peter Cavanaugh-Crabbe (two b’s and an e). He had bought Villa Gladys in 1902 and had lived there ever since.
“Didn’t you have any trouble with the Germans?”
“Not a jot. Not until this fellow turned up.”
We had stopped outside a small stone lean- to at the end of a barn. The door was bolted on the outside. From inside came a clucking of hens.
“There’s a Jerry inside,” Cavanaugh-Crabbe said, then, with a glance at Two Dogs, he lowered his voice and added, “Though he looks more like an Ay-rab to me. He crept in early this morning—after the eggs, no doubt. Old Lucien there”—he gestured at the rake-toting gardener—“spotted him and locked him in. I don’t think he’s got a gun, but you can’t be too careful.”
“What do you want us to do?”
“Take the bugger off my hands, of course. You are soldiers.”
“I’m not. I’m a journalist.”
“Well, what about this fellow? He’s got a gun.”
“Yes, well … you see, our jeep’s broken down.”
“Don’t worry about transport. I’ve got an old Citroën you can comandeer. Give me a chit, then just leave it in Le Muy.”
I looked at Two Dogs. He shrugged.
“All right, then,” I said. I went up to the door of the lean- to and shouted through it in German, “We are American soldiers. Come out with your hands up!”
A voice came from inside: “Kamerad!”
I unbolted the door and stepped back. Two Dogs covered the doorway with his carbine. A couple of hens sidled cautiously out into the sunlight. Then the soldier appeared. He was helmetless, in an ill-fitting, lumpy, bloodstained uniform. Egg albumen glistened thickly on the bristles of his chin. He was a small thick-set man, dark-skinned, with a narrow forehead. He blinked stupidly in the sunshine.
“Hände hoch,” I said. He complied instantly.
“Bastard’s been at my eggs,” Cavanaugh-Crabbe said. “I knew it.”
He went off and drove a very dusty black car with wide running boards out of a barn, into the yard. I wrote him out a receipt for the car and signed it on behalf of General Patch, CO of the Seventh Army.
“I’ll drive,” I said to Two Dogs. “You cover him in the back.”
Two Dogs prodded the soldier—Azerbaijani, I guessed—into the back of the car.
“If you follow that track there between the fields”—Cavanaugh-Crabbe pointed out the route—“you’ll hit the Le Muy–Fréjus road after five minutes or so. Then turn left.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Thanks very much,” Cavanaugh-Crabbe said. “And could you tell the medicos to come and pick up the dead chappies? They’ve been out in the sun a couple of days now and they’re beginning to hum a bit.”
“Certainly.”
“Much obliged,” he said. “By the way, what’s your name? Very grateful.”
“Todd,” I said. “John James Todd.”
He looked inquiringly at Two Dogs.
“Two Dogs Running.”
“Say again?”
“Two Dogs Running.”
“Oh yes?… Well, jolly good.”
I got into the front of the car. Two Dogs slid into the back beside the Azerbaijani. There was a powerful smell of chicken shit.
I waved good-bye to our host and bumped off down the cart track in the direction he had indicated.
“You’d pay a lot for a vacation like this,” I said to Two Dogs.
It took twenty minutes to reach the Le Muy-Fréjus road, much longer than Cavanaugh-Crabbe had estimated. I stopped the car thirty yards short of the junction. I was worried that we had got lost somehow. I got out and looked round. It was still very hot. The dust that had risen behind us hung in the air. I looked at my watch: four-fifteen—it had been a long day.
There was a scuffle in the backseat. Two Dogs shoved the Azerbaijani out of the car.
“Look at this guy’s pockets, Mr. Todd. Something’s bothering me.”
The soldier stood there, his hands half-raised. The two hip pockets of his tunic were dark with old blood. They were buttoned down and bulging.
“Is he wounded?”
“No. Look at his wrists.”
The man wore two wristwatches on each wrist. I told him in German to empty his pockets. He didn’t seem to understand. I reached to undo the flap on one and to my astonishment he slapped my hands away.
“Nein,” he said, taking a pace backwards. He looked nervous, worried. Then, suddenly, he turned and ran into the vineyard.
With a shout Two Dogs was after him. I followed. Two Dogs ran down the aisle of vines, gaining on the soldier easily. He caught up with him on the edge of a small copse of cork oaks and, holding the barrel, he swung his carbine like a club in a wide arc. The butt glanced
heavily off the soldier’s head. When I arrived Two Dogs stood over him, gun leveled. The soldier was trying to get up on his knees but kept falling over like a concussed boxer. Two Dogs pushed him flat with a boot. This time the soldier gave up and lay there, flat.
“Check his pockets, Mr. Todd.”
I was out of breath. Dusty sunbeams slanted through the leaves of the cork oaks. The Azerbaijani had a bad gash above his right ear. His eyes were shut, his face was covered in dust and he was moaning slightly. Carefully, with bilious foreboding, I unbuttoned his pocket and reached in. My fingers felt something.
I thought: saveloys, thin German sausages, Azerbaijani biltong.
I pulled out five severed fingers, women’s fingers, old and young fingers, all with rings on them.
I did not scream. I gave a kind of audible shudder, as one does when shocked by sudden cold.