Philip Jamieson felt that ‘Operation Bernardin’, as it came to be called, owed a great deal to the young Heriots, and their local knowledge. When Dick was told of the plan after dinner—they were sitting in the boys’ own room, which housed shelves-ful of books, their wireless and record-player, and a welter of scientific papers—he said at once: ‘There’s a cabane up at Permounat. Hadn’t we better make sure that the shepherds have gone down? They ought to have by now, of course. Or do you not mind the odd peasant seeing B. being picked up and flown off, Sir?’
In fact this is the sort of thing Intelligence does mind very much; one can seldom be absolutely sure that the peasant is really a peasant.
‘Is there any means of finding out?’ the Colonel enquired.
‘Yes, I can ask when I’m up at Larége tomorrow—they all take their flocks down roughly at the same time, and one valley usually knows what the other valleys are doing. I’ll see to that.’
Philip turned to Nick.
‘If we only hear tomorrow evening whether there are still shepherds up there, either we must find another place, or stand it all off till they do go. So Wednesday will probably be the earliest day in any case.’
‘I’ll keep in touch with Acland. He’s all on, and loves the idea’ Nick replied—‘and I’ll go over when the day is fixed and tell Bonnecourt accordingly.’ It had already been decided by Jamieson not to risk a telephone message, even via Pauline Pontarlet, but that Nick should drive to Tardets and instruct the hunter when to go up to the plateau. ‘Anyhow, Sir, I’ve been thinking,’ Nick went on. ‘If you’re going to drive over to Pamplona tomorrow and change cars with young Monro, it would be much better to make it Wednesday; you’d hardly get back here before first light on Tuesday, and you said you wanted to be on hand for the pick-up.’
‘Yes, I do.’ If there is one thing Intelligence feels strongly about it is not letting an agent be collected by anyone who does not know him by sight; all too easy for ‘them’ to put a counter-agent on board a train or a plane. ‘Does young Acland know Bonnecourt?’ he asked now.
‘Oddly enough, no; he’s always climbed with the other guide.’
‘Then either you or I will have to be up at this plateau.’
‘If you don’t mind riding pillion on a motor-bike over rather rough going, I could get you up to within an hour’s walk of it.’
‘Excellent’ the Colonel said. Dick looked surprised.
‘What mo-bike?’ he asked his brother.
‘Dr. Fourget’s. You know he’s forever chugging up the most ghastly tracks on it, where his car can’t get, to reach cases.’ He turned to Jamieson. ‘You wouldn’t believe, Sir, how often the peasants here impale themselves on their dung-forks, in the highest spots—or gash off their thumbs with hatchets! I rang the old boy up and he says I can borrow his machine.’
Philip laughed at the idea of the self-impaled peasants, but he was relieved that he could be taken to check Bonnecourt’s actual departure.
‘Very well—settle with young Acland for Wednesday, if your brother reports all clear by then.’
‘I’ll go and collect the bike tomorrow in any case, to have it ready’ Nick said. ‘Dick and Luzia can drop me off at Labielle on their way.’
This reminded Dick of the matter of scrubbing the floors; he went off to see his Mother, and laid on a sturdy young housemaid for the purpose.
‘No, of course Luzia mustn’t do that’ Lady Heriot said. ‘Emma can go—she’ll enjoy the outing.’
‘Whoever suggested that the Countess should do such a thing?’ Lord Heriot enquired.
‘Luzia did!’ (The Portuguese girl had absented herself earlier to write some letters.) ‘I gather she’s been doing quite a lot of scrubbing for Mrs. Jamieson.’
‘All nonsense, from beginning to end!’ the old man said. ‘Where’s that fellow Jamieson? I meant to tell him off about it.’
But Jamieson, leaving his excuses with Nick, had gone back to the Victoire. Next morning he started at six, blinded up over the Grandpont Pass and down the further side. After leaving the mountains he turned west, crossing low foothills and outlying ridges—the Spanish slope of the Pyrenees is much more gradual than the abrupt approach on the northern side—till presently he was down in the Aragon valley, the vast rolling tawny plain of Northern Spain, where small towns perch on steep little hills. One of these, a sign-post informed him, was Berdun, and he slowed down to look at it—fantastically crowning its hill-top the white and blue-washed houses, jammed together on the summit, glittered like silver in the sun. Berdun, Verdun? Probably the same name originally; B. and V. were practically interchangeable in Spanish, the man thought—anyhow a dun, a fort; indubitably a Celtic place-name. He must tell Julia; it would please her, as it did him. He drove on more slowly, looking for the abandoned air-field. Yes, there it was—the forlorn, deserted little control-tower of mud-coloured brick, the ragged wind-sock, also mud-coloured with age, flying from a pole close by. Well he must bring Colin out and check all details with him on the spot. He drove on, fast, to Pamplona—there was a lot to arrange, in a short time.
Colin was staying at the Hotel Bristol—so much Jamieson had managed to learn in their abortive telephone conversation the evening before; it was now getting on for two, and they had lunch. Philip explained the arrangements for getting Bonnecourt to Glentoran, and that Colin was to take him the whole way.
‘Oh, good—I shall see Aglaia; Edina’s asked her up for a bit.’ (Aglaia was Colin’s wife.) ‘But has B. got a Spanish visa? He’ll want it at Gib.’
‘I shouldn’t think so for a moment—he seems to me too casual for words.’
‘Oh, have you met him?’
‘Yes—I’ll tell you about that presently. I shall have to ring up Gibraltar after lunch and get all that fixed. I expect I’d better do it from your local H.Q.—who is this Señor Moreño?’
‘The local garagiste!’ Colin said grinning.
‘Oh well, very often it’s the barber’ Jamieson said, resignedly; the peculiar methods of his Service held no surprises for him. ‘Box at all sound-proof?’
‘No, no box—an extension in his bedroom. He mounts guard outside; or I do, in this case. Who shall you speak to?’
‘Well, as it’s all rather a rush, I think I’ll ring the Convent. I know Bramwell, the A.D.C. But as we’re not sure of the day yet, you’ll have to let him know when to meet you at La Linea, once you’re well under way.’
From Señor Moreño’s bedside telephone Jamieson put through his call to the Governor’s oddly-named house in Gibraltar. No, Major Bramwell was out—‘the Duty Officer speaking.’
Philip embarked on one of those complicated telephoned explanations which are supposed to convey their meaning without, if possible, giving too much away to unwanted listeners. Fortunately the Duty Officer was very quick at the uptake.
‘Yes, I see. Two flights home, and a Spanish visa needed for the—er—newcomer. Well, I or Bramwell had better go up to La Linea to see to all that, when we know the day and time. What’s the name of this man of yours who’s bringing him? Oh, Monro. Not Colin, by any chance? It is?—oh, it will be nice to see him again; we were at prep-school together. My name? Satterthwaite. Right—when we hear, we’ll be there.’
Philip passed all this on to Colin; then they drove out, Colin now in his own Rover, Philip in the hire-car, to inspect the derelict airfield.
The track to it from the road was rather bumpy from long disuse, but they got their cars along and parked close under, and behind, the shabby little control tower; Philip got out and walked back to the main road. When he returned—‘Go two yards farther on, and you’ll barely be visible’ he said. ‘You may have to wait here some time, and you don’t want to arouse curiosity. See if you can pull in closer under the tower.’ Colin did this, and Jamieson again went out onto the road.
‘All right’ he said when he came back. ‘Completely unsighted.’ Then he walked out to examine the airfield itself. A hoopoe flew up in front of him from between the tufts of yellowish grass; it alighted again, raising and lowering its delicate crest. and moved away with quick light steps. Philip walked on. As Nick had said, red-and-white markers, their colours dimmed by the prevailing tawny dust, still outlined the main run-way; the whole place was becoming overgrown with grass, withered to a pale gold at summer’s end, and here and there sagey bushes had begun to spring up. But he saw no goats, and there was nothing else to prevent a safe landing. Satisfied, he went back to the cars.
‘Well unless you hear to the contrary, be here, ready, from 10.45 onwards on Wednesday’ he told Colin. ‘Full up with air, oil, and gas. Have you got plenty of money?’
‘I think so—but I can always get more from Moreño.’
‘Well don’t run short. It’s only for food and an hotel on the way, and possible breakdowns! Bramwell will see to everything at Gibraltar.’ He said goodbye to his wife’s cousin, and drove, hard, back to Pau.
* * *
The Plateau de Permounat is a most peculiar place, astonishing to anyone unfamiliar with the western Pyrenees. It lies high, among rough wild surroundings; set between the grey ridges and rocky slopes is an oval of fine grass over 200 yards long, as smooth as a lawn or a cricket-pitch, and absolutely level save for 4 enormous boulders, as big as cottages, standing at one side of it. Here Colonel Jamieson came on that Wednesday morning, after jolting uncomfortably on the pillion of Dr. Fourget’s motorcycle up some exceedingly uncouth tracks, till Nick parked the machine at a farm; then they walked uphill for another hour. Dick, on his return with Luzia and the sturdy Emma from their house-cleaning at Larége, had reported positively that all the flocks and shepherds had already come down from the high pastures, including Permounat; Nick had driven over to Tardets next day and given Bonnecourt word to be at the Plateau by 10.30 on the Wednesday; then he had told the obliging Master Acland to be there by 10.20—and Philip had sent a brief telegram to Colin: ‘Wednesday as arranged.’
‘What an extraordinary place!’ Jamieson exclaimed, as he and Nick reached the top of a shallow col, and looked down onto the green little plateau. ‘I never saw anything like it in my life—not in the Alps, nor the Caucasus; nowhere.’
‘There are several of them about here’ Nick said, starting down. ‘Let’s wait in the cabane, out of the wind.’
In spite of Dick’s reassurances, the mere mention of the possible presence of shepherds at Permounat had caused Philip Jamieson to take certain simple precautions; he had brought a haversack with an out-size flask of cognac, and three or four small glasses, along with his sandwiches—knock-out tablets he always carried in his pocket as a matter of course. These measures proved to have been wise—when Nick pushed open the door of the cabane and walked in, a sleepy peasant roused up from one of the bunks on which the cheese-making shepherds slept when their flocks were grazing the high pastures. Nick asked him, rather brusquely, what he was doing there?
‘I miss one sheep—all yesterday I seek it, and do not find it’ the man said, rubbing his eyes. ‘So then I sleep—today I seek it again.’
‘Gently’ Philip said to Nick. ‘Let me talk to him.’ He commiserated with the man over the loss of such a valuable animal as a sheep, and offered him a glass of cognac before he renewed his search—as he spoke setting his glasses out on the rough wooden table, and opening his flask.
The peasant was delighted. He drank, wiped his unshaven lips, drank again, and asked where ces messieurs came from?
‘From Pau; we make a small ascension’ Philip said. While they talked he looked at his watch; it was ten minutes past ten. None too much time—please God young Acland didn’t arrive too soon. He told Nick, in English, to ask the man the best way up a small peak at the further end of the plateau; while they went to the door and looked out he re-filled the shepherd’s glass, and crumbled a couple of tablets from his small phial into it. When the pair returned, Nick reporting the route—a sharp boy, Nick, Jamieson decided, always able to act on a hint without any dotting of i’s or crossing of t’s—he handed the drugged glass to the man. ‘Another petit verre, Monsieur, before you renew your search.’
The peasant was already a little dopey; he had had one good glass of brandy on an empty stomach. Gratefully, wishing the strangers good health and good fortune, he drank away at the second, while Philip kept his eye on his watch, and listened for the sound of Acland’s plane.
‘Go out and look if there’s any sign of B.’ he said to Nick. ‘I’d rather he didn’t see this man.’ Nick went off.
In fact the timing was perfect. Three minutes before the very light, faint hum of the plane became audible the peasant slumped over sideways on the rough bench beside the table; Philip went to the door of the cabane and summoned Nick—‘Come and help me to lay him on one of the bunks.’
‘What’s happened to him?’ Nick asked, surprised.
‘I put him out—had to. Take his feet.’ Together they lifted the man onto the bunk; Philip laid a blanket over him—‘Chilly, up here,’ he said. ‘But he’ll be all right in a couple of hours.’ They heard the sound of the plane, went out, and watched Tim Acland’s neat and precise banking and turning, till he landed on the minute lawn-smooth space, and came to a halt.
‘Well, that was all right’ the young pilot said, leaning out of his machine. ‘Wind absolutely perfect! How do you do, Sir’ he said politely to Jamieson. ‘Where’s my passenger?’
‘Due in eight minutes’ the Colonel said, looking at his watch.
‘Then I’ll turn her.’ With considerable skill he manoeuvred his machine round, taxied back to the far end of the plateau, and helped by Nick turned again, till he was facing into the wind. He had just completed this performance when a figure appeared, coming over another of the small cols between the rocky peaks which surrounded the strange little spot, and walked rapidly down towards them; with immense relief Jamieson saw that it was really Bonnecourt—he was beginning to fear that this end of the Pyrenees might be alive with unwanted peasants.
‘Morning’ he said to the hunter. ‘Here’s your pilot, and your plane. Now you know the drill—Monro is waiting for you down on the far side; he will drive you to Gibraltar, fly with you to England, and take you right up to this place in Scotland. He’ll take you to the Office on the way, and introduce you—but you’re well remembered there!’ he said pleasantly. ‘After that you will get your orders from London.’
‘Admirable’ Bonnecourt said. ‘I am infinitely grateful!’ He turned to Nick. ‘Have you put ma pauvre voiture into the Gave?’
‘Not yet’ Nick said, laughing—‘There hasn’t been time. But I will, I promise you. One can’t do everything at once—and there has been quite a lot to do.’
‘Thank you—I know that I can rely on you.’ Then the hunter turned to Jamieson. ‘And how soon may I expect Madame my wife to join me in Scotland?’
Philip was amused at the order in which Bonnecourt placed his enquiries—voiture first, wife second. But his reply was gentle and considerate.
‘I thought you would wish to see the house, and the general situation, and write to Madame about it all, before she comes. For her, there is no hurry—in fact it will be more prudent that she does not follow you too soon; and she will wish, presumably, to make arrangements for the care of the property at Larége during your absence—which may well be of some duration. But my wife has written already to her cousin, Mrs. Reeder, asking her to ensure that all is made easy and pleasant for Madame Bonnecourt.’
‘Madame Jamieson se charge de cela? In that case, all will certainly be well,’ Bonnecourt said. ‘Please give her my thanks.’ He paused, and looked a little hesitantly at Jamieson. ‘This lady in Scotland is like Madame?’ he asked.
‘Not to look at; she’s more like Monro—black and white.’
‘But she has the same character?’
Jamieson was surprised afresh by Bonnecourt’s pre-occupation with Julia and her character.
‘Well, she’s very competent, and very kind’ he said. ‘I’m sure your wife will get on with her, and be taken good care of.’ He looked at his watch—he was anxious to get the plane and its passenger away before anything else inconvenient occurred—the unexpected shepherd had been nuisance enough. But the hunter took his arm.
‘Just one moment, Colonel. Would it be possible for my wife to come down and speak with Madame Jamieson, who knows this place in Scotland so well?’ he asked, almost wistfully. ‘It—it would reassure her.’ He turned to Nick. ‘Mon cher Nick, I am sure you would not mind bringing Madame down.’
‘Look, Bonnecourt, if it’s safe, we’ll certainly arrange that’ the Colonel said, firmly. ‘But if it means a risk for her, or for all our operations here, it may not be possible. Leave it to me. Now you’d better hop in and get off. Goodbye—bon voyage, and au revoir in London.’
Bonnecourt, shaking hands with him and with Nick, climbed into the little plane. But just as Tim Acland started up his engine a sheep, baa-ing loudly, came down off the further slopes and started across the small run-way, heading towards the cabane.
‘Oh God! Chase the damned thing away!’ Jamieson said to Nick. ‘It’s probably looking for its master.’ Nick, laughing, tried to chivvy the animal back up the slopes down which it had come; but sheep are not easily driven by anything but sheepdogs, and the creature continued to cavort about on the grass, vainly pursued by Nick.
‘Get off the moment you can’ Jamieson said to young Acland; then he hurried across to the cabane, went in, and shut the door, to keep the sheep’s voice from its owner’s ears. Probably he had given the man a strong enough dose, but peasants were very close to the animal world, and the links between them incredibly strong—he was taking no chances. In fact the shepherd was stirring faintly under the blanket; but when, to Philip’s great relief, the sound of the plane’s engine taking off drowned the baa-ing, the man lay still again. Through the small cloudy window Jamieson saw the little machine rise, clear a low col at the western end of the plateau, bank, and head away South; he went out to see it better. Nick, fairly howling with laughter, was dancing about between the sheep and the door; Philip shut this after him, and stood watching till the plane disappeared.
‘Well that’s all right’ he said, as the hum of the engine died away in the distance. ‘I’ll just stow the glasses, and then we’ll go. What a brute! Keep it out.’ He kicked at the persistent sheep, slid into the hut, and shut the door behind him; stuffing the glasses, rolled in a handkerchief, into his haversack, he rejoined Nick.
‘There you are—go in and find your master, you silly old thing’ Nick addressed the sheep, propping the door ajar with a stone; they could see the animal sniffing in the entrance as they climbed up to the small col from which they had come down. ‘Probably eat half a blanket, and die of it’ Nick said—‘I ought not to have left the door open.’ He made as if to turn back.
‘Oh, bother the sheep!’ Jamieson exclaimed unsympathetically. ‘It’s given us enough trouble already. Come on.’
They paused for a sandwich at the farm where they had left the Doctor’s motor-cycle, and then had a jolting journey back to Pau. Philip picked up his car, drove to the clinic, and hurried in to speak to Julia; he had returned from Pamplona too late the night before to see her, and left too early that morning. She was just starting her mid-day meal; after a hasty kiss he went to eat at the little hotel—‘I’ll come in again just before four’ he said. That all right?’
‘Perfectly. Did it all go according to plan?’
‘Yes—and dead on time. See you presently.’
During the ‘Period of repose’, when Julia must not be disturbed, Philip drove round to the Heriots, where he found Tim Acland being given a belated lunch by the twins in the deserted dining-room.
‘Oh yes, everything O.K.’ the young man reported cheerfully—‘except that Berdun was absolutely covered with goats! I flew low, and circled, but they wouldn’t move, so I shut off the engine and simply yelled to your cousin to chase them away; I don’t know if he heard, but he picked up the idea, and hunted them to the side of the field. So then I landed and dropped your man, and they both got into the Rover and drove off.’
‘Did you see any other cars, or police, about?’ Jamieson asked.
‘Not a soul except the goats—if goats have souls! Then I flew back. The petrol just held out nicely; I was a little nervous after that extra circling, which I hadn’t allowed for, because it’s a close-run thing anyhow, to Berdun and back—let alone the détour to that plateau. But all went well.’
‘And all they know at the Ailes Basques is that Tim had a lovely solo fly out Westwards’ Nick said gleefully. ‘So I don’t see how even those nosey-parkers of the Sureté or the D.B. can suspect anything, let alone fasten on something.’
Philip Jamieson thanked young Acland warmly. ‘We are most grateful to you’ he said. ‘I should like to offer to pay for your petrol, at least—but I’m afraid you wouldn’t accept it.’
‘Not on your life!’ Tim Acland replied fervently. ‘It isn’t everyone who gets the chance to fly a secret agent; I shall hug this (to my own bosom, of course) all my life. “Our Man in Larége”—I flew him out.’ Jamieson could only laugh.
When he went round to see Julia later he found something else nice too—the quite novel experience of having a person to whom to recount his adventures in perfect security, and who took an intense interest in them. This was altogether different from reporting to Major Hartley or anyone else at the Office—attentive and friendly as they always were. Julia was concerned about his discomfort on the pillion of Dr. Fourget’s motor-cycle, horrified at the discovery of the peasant in the cabane up on the Plateau de Permounat, and laughed wildly over the sudden appearance of the sheep, which had threatened the takeoff.
‘Oh darling, how ridiculous!’ she said. Philip, happy to be amusing her, recounted young Acland’s trouble with the goats at Berdun.
‘Really, animals are the last thing one would expect “the opposition” to lay on as a Secret Weapon’ Julia said—‘though I see that they could be quite a useful one.’ Philip was rather disconcerted by this.
‘I don’t really see how they can have been laid on this time, at either place’ he said. ‘The shepherd up at the Plateau seemed just an ordinary dumb peasant; and how could any Spaniards have got the idea of smothering Berdun with goats, precisely this morning?’
‘Darling, I didn’t mean that they had—I’m sure it was all completely fortuitous today. It just struck me as a possible bright idea. Couldn’t you use it yourself?—have droves of camels in reserve to blanket airfields if some anti-you Sheiks try to fly in to obstruct your operations?’
Philip Jamieson only half-laughed. ‘I think you may have got something there. Camels could be moved much more quickly, and less noticeably, than oil-drums. Thank you, dearest.’ Then he passed on Bonnecourt’s request that she would see his wife, and tell her about Glentoran. ‘He seems to have immense faith in you—he was rather touching about it. I said you would, if it was safe for her.’
‘Of course I will. I know the very cottage they’ll be in, and its nice little garden; so lay that on at any time. I’m sure I can encourage her—it’s all a fearful uprooting for the poor little woman. Luzia likes her’ Julia said, inconsequently.
The sage-femme now came in with Philip Bernard in her arms to prepare for the next feed; this time she dumped the creature, still swathed in cottonwool, in his Father’s arms. ‘Voilà!—let M. le Colonel hold his son,’ she said.
Philip gazed in a sort of bewilderment at the tiny creased face, now so close to his own.
‘He’s not in the least like anyone’ he said. But at that moment the baby began to howl angrily, disliking the strange arms, and wanting his food. ‘Yes, he is—he’s exactly like you when you disapprove of anything’ he said to Julia. ‘Good!’
Philip would have liked to watch his child being fed, but in spite of his promises to sit perfectly quiet the old sage-femme was adamant—no, the infant was premature, and the Mother must not on any account be distracted. To his own surprise, as much as to Julia’s, Philip deposited a light kiss on the little pink forehead before the old woman took the creature from him.
‘Well I must ring up the Office anyhow’ he said to his wife ‘and report. I’ll do that from the Heriots, and come back later.’
‘What a bill you must be running up at the Heriots for telephone calls!’ Julia said, holding out her arms for the baby.
‘Not a bit of it—spot cash every time! Lord H. is very tough about all that,’ Philip said.
‘Voyons, Monsieur le Colonel! You must absolutely leave Madame in peace now’ the old sage-femme said, exasperated—Philip blew his wife a kiss, and went away.
He found Lady Heriot having tea alone. The twins were out, and her husband, she said, was at a meeting of the Cemetery Committee. ‘So many people come here, and then go and die, that we are running short of space—and land is getting terribly expensive. I expect it will end in our having to give up a piece of the garden, but it will be most inconvenient; so far from the old cemetery, and from the Church. I wish fewer people wanted to die in Pau!’
‘I expect they like living here, and then Death overtakes them’ Jamieson said. ‘I should quite like to die in Pau—or even better up at Larége.’ He refused the cup of tea she offered him, saying that, as so often, he wanted to telephone. ‘I’m afraid I am a terrible nuisance, but I may just catch the man I want at the Office if I do it at once. Oh please don’t get up!—I know my way to the study.’
He was in time to catch Major Hartley.
‘Yes, safely over, and on his way to Gib’ he said, in reply to the Major’s enquiry. ‘No, flown out … Private enterprise, laid on locally … No, no hitches, except for a few goats … I said goats—smelly animals, with horns! Yes, this a.m. You’d better ring Gib—the A.D.C. was out when I tried … No, two passages; I’ve told young C. to go with him right up to his destination—sorry to take C. off your job, but it can be done more unobtrusively that way … Argyll—my wife has got him a job as a ghillie … Oh yes, free at any time; it’s on C’s sister’s place … Yes, they’ll look in on you on their way through, and C. will put you in the picture … Lord no!—they’ll take the bus; that’s what I meant by unobtrusive. You don’t listen! … By the way, tell MacPherson to lay on camels, fifty or a hundred … To block the airfield, of course—no plane can land on a strip covered with camels.’
Loud laughter came down the long line from London to Pau.
‘How brilliant!’ Major Hartley said. ‘Why didn’t you think that one up sooner?’
‘I didn’t think it up—it was my wife’s idea.’
‘Congratulations to your wife’ Hartley said. ‘All right—I’ll see to everything. Expect you in about a fortnight.’
‘Let me know when you hear from Gib—it’s impossible to telephone across this ghastly frontier. Tell Paris; they can ring me’ Philip said urgently. ‘And some time take time out to slap down Monteith; he’s an ass!’
‘Oh—why?’
‘Tell you when I see you.’
While he was actually at the Heriot’s telephone, so conveniently private, Philip took the opportunity to ring up Colonel Monceau in Paris, and thank him for his good offices. ‘It is all much more convenient and agreeable now’ he said carefully—‘and the action was taken so promptly. I am most grateful.’
‘And our old friend—he is gone?’
‘Yes, but only today. This is a monster!—utterly regardless of instructions’ Philip said. Now there was laughter over the wires from Paris.
‘Ah, my friend, you and your colleagues will find that you have your hands full enough with that one! It is an individualist! But he can be of great value. Well, bonne chance! How is Madame?—and the son?’
‘Both splendid, thank you.’ Then he asked if he could bring Madame B. down to see his wife without creating difficulties? ‘She well knows the place to which they go; she would like to encourage Madame.’
‘By all means; she is no longer under observation.’
‘Excellent—a thousand thanks. See you again soon, Jean, I hope.’ He rang off.
As usual, it took a considerable time before the Inter could be persuaded to give the price of the calls: Philip wrote the date and time of both in Lord Heriot’s book: ‘London; Paris,’ and his own name—but not the two highly secret numbers; he added the cost when he learned it, and went back to the drawing-room. There he found the twins returned and drinking tea, with Luzia.
‘More telephoning?’ Dick asked, as Jamieson put several notes down on the tea-tray.
‘Yes indeed—I should be lost without the blessed privacy of this house.’ He thanked Lady Heriot once again.
‘Well now, if you got the person you wanted, have a cup of tea—this is a fresh pot’ his hostess said. This time Philip accepted gratefully, and ate some buttered brioches as well. Presently Nick observed, thoughtfully—
‘I think we ought to carry out poor old B’s last wishes.’
‘Which were?’ his twin enquired.
‘First, to drive that poor crazy old car of his into the Gave, to save it from the knackers.’
‘What is this, “knackers”?’ Luzia asked, curiously—she was always interested in unfamiliar English expressions.
‘Well literally, people who kill very old horses, and sell the meat to feed dogs—but nowadays it goes for anyone who breaks up cars and uses some of the bits,’ Nick replied.
‘I think you ought to do that’ Lady Heriot said. ‘But won’t it look the least bit dramatic if you do it in broad daylight?’ Now Luzia gazed at her hostess with intense interest—really, the English! ‘And it will have to be quite a deep place,’ she added.
‘I know, Maman. But there’s a spot, a good bit down-stream, where that little tributary comes in; it has scoured out a pretty deep pool—I went and threw stones into it this afternoon. It would hide any car, and there are no houses near by; the bank is very steep, practically vertical, and there’s quite a firm grass field right to the edge.’
Jamieson listened to all this with as much interest as Luzia—he had committed himself to Bonnecourt over the disposal of the ancient Bugatti, but he was fascinated by Lady Heriot’s concern with this unusual undertaking. She continued with her questions.
‘How should you do it?’
‘I drive it down, and to the lip of the river-bank; Dick follows on in his Jag and gives it a good push from behind when I’ve got out. Or I might put it in gear, switch on the engine through the door, and jump aside. But it all means a certain degree of accuracy—it would be much easier by daylight.’
‘Yes, I see.’ Lady Heriot pondered. ‘But during evening daylight most of the peasants are roving about, going to drink at the buvettes, or to call on their lady-loves. I think it would be far wiser to go at daybreak, when all but the very old men will be sleeping off their various forms of pleasure.’
‘O.K.—we’ll go tomorrow, first thing’ Dick said. ‘You always know all the answers, Maman.’
‘Oh, could I not go too? I should love to see a car driven into a river!’ Luzia exclaimed.
‘Yes—I’ll have you called’ Lady Heriot said. Philip asked when this demolition squad would be setting out?—he too wanted to see one part of his promise to Bonnecourt fulfilled.
‘Well, say a quarter to five—it will still be practically dark then, but by the time we get to the place it will be light enough to see what we’re doing; if not we can wait till it is’.
‘Right—I’ll be round here at 4.45’ Philip said.
The following morning was overcast, and it was almost in pitch darkness that Jamieson drove round from his hotel to the Heriots; there the old Bugatti and Dick’s Jaguar were marshalled on the drive, and with their headlights on they drove in convoy through Pau, still a sleeping town, and out westwards into the open country beyond, Nick in the Bugatti leading. He did not take the main route by Lacq and Orthez, but crossed the river in the town itself, and then followed the much smaller road which hugs the southern, or true left bank of the Gave de Pau. Presently he signalled with his hand to the cars behind him to slow down, and switched off his headlights; then he drove on, slowly—the others following. Presently they came to a small village in which an ancient stone-built bridge spanned a fairsized stream; some 400 yards further on Nick slung the Bugatti to the right into a broad grassy meadow, crossed it, and pulled up on the very lip of the bank overhanging the river.
By now day was breaking, in spite of the clouded sky; when Dick pulled up behind Bonnecourt’s old car, and walked across to the river’s brink, there was light enough for him to see the whole lay-out. There was an almost vertical drop of over twenty feet into the Gave, which here, thanks to the erosive efforts of the tributary coming down from the Pyrenees, had expanded into a wide pool, in which the grey-green waters swirled and eddied—there had been rain in the mountains, and the river was running bank-high.
‘Perfect’ Dick said. ‘At the moment,’ he added cautiously. ‘Any idea how much this pool dries out in the summer?’
‘No—but we shan’t have summer again for another eight months; and by then we’ll have had lots of time to put a plastic bomb under the poor old thing, if the pool shows signs of shrinking,’ Nick replied.
‘I agree. All right—on we go. Will you start the engine, or shall I give her a shove?’
Luzia and Colonel Jamieson had also got out, and had peered over the edge of the bank; they listened to the twins.
‘Push it with your car; do not let Nick start the engine—he might get caught in the door, and be carried away’ Luzia said urgently. Dick looked at her, surprised and rather disconcerted by this concern for his brother.
‘I agree’ Jamieson put in. ‘Either let us push it over the edge by hand, or Dick give it some propulsion from behind with his car. We can see what we’re doing now.’ He looked carefully at the meadow. ‘I think there’s just enough slope to get a run on it by hand. Back away a bit, Dick.’ The young man did so. ‘Now, Nick, reverse her a little—That’s enough’ he said, when Nick had backed the Bugatti about 30 feet. ‘Now let’s push her.’ Nick released the hand-brake, and together the three men propelled Bonnecourt’s beloved old car over the edge of the bank—it fell with a colossal splash into the pool.
‘Well that’s all right—not a sign of it showing’ Colonel Jamieson said, leaning over to inspect the water after the splash had subsided. ‘Safe till next summer, anyhow. Good.’ He walked back to his own car, while Dick turned the Jaguar.
‘Yes, the sooner we clear off the better’ Nick said—as he spoke he bent down and began to brush up the grass with his hand where the wheels of the cars had crushed it. ‘Peasants notice everything’ he observed. ‘I wish we’d brought a rake. Dick, go and kick off the rim of the bank where the wheel-marks show; that’s a frightful give-away.’
Dick made no move to do as his brother asked. ‘Oh, come on—I want some breakfast!’ he said; he felt vaguely disgruntled. But Luzia went straight to the steep edge and began to kick at the turf, rather incompetently, with her small white sandals.
‘I say, look out—you might pitch over’ Dick said anxiously. ‘Don’t do that, Luzia.’
‘If you will not do it, I will’ the girl said. ‘Someone must—here security is involved.’ Jamieson joined her; with his large Scottish feet and strong shoes he was much more effectual, shoving great chunks of grass and soil over the lip of the bank into the river, till at the actual edge there was soon no sign that a car had gone over. Nick continued to scrape away at the grass, in silence; he felt uncomfortable. Something new and disturbing was going on; he was not yet certain what, and was a little afraid of finding out.
All the others now helped to scratch up the crushed grass and remove the wheel-marks.
‘Well, that’s the best we can do,’ the Colonel said. ‘Now let’s get away. Do we have to go back through that village?’ he asked Nick.
‘No. If we go on to Lacq there’s a bridge over the Gave, and we can take the main road back to Pau. I thought that would be better—they may have heard us coming through.’
‘Quite right.’ He turned politely to Luzia. ‘Condesa, will you come with me?’
‘Thank you—but I drive with Dick’ the girl replied. ‘But you will take Nick, of course.’
Nick was rather relieved—somehow he didn’t very much want a tête-à-tête drive with his brother just then, and got thankfully into Jamieson’s car. Dick was relieved too. Luzia had been a bit sharp with him, and he had wondered what was going on in her mind about Nick; but this looked as though everything was all right. (Dick, as his Father had once told Julia, was an optimist.)
As the two cars, Jamieson’s leading, turned out from the field into the road an old man came hobbling by with a scythe over his shoulder—he signalled to them to stop.
‘You do the talking’ the Colonel said to Nick, pulling up. ‘Better satisfy him if you can.’
What the old man said he wanted was a lift some three kilometres down the road, to a farm where he was being employed to cut the second crop of hay, the aftermath. But when he was installed in the back seat, the blade of his scythe projecting dangerously out of the window, he began to ask questions. Ces Messieurs had wished to fish in the Gave? But here the current was too strong, and also it was too early in the day. Nick was very ready.
‘No, we do not fish; we are geologists’ he said.
‘Géologistes? What is this? I never heard the word.’
‘We study the structure of the rocks and the soil; it is an important science’ Nick said firmly. ‘À la longue it is helpful to agriculture. And one of the best and easiest places for this study is the banks of rivers, where the face of the soil is exposed; hence we go to look at the Gave.’
The old man was impressed—‘Ah, les Messieurs are scientists! Tiens!’ But he was not altogether satisfied. ‘And why do ces Messieurs go to examine the banks of the Gave at such an hour?’
‘Because we have to cover several hundred kilomêtres of the Gave today—so like Monsieur, we start early for the day’s work!’
Now the old man laughed, at last contented. When he got out he wrung Nick’s hand warmly with his own gnarled, brown, and wrinkled one.
‘Bonne chance, Monsieur, with your enquiries. If you discover something of use to agriculture, please pass it on to Le Général!—we others, we feel that he ignores us.’
‘You handled that very nicely’ the Colonel said to Nick, as they drove on. ‘I am in luck here, to get such good help on the spot—yours, and your Mother’s. Oh!’—as the road bent right and crossed a bridge—‘Is that Lacq?’
In the bright early light that astonishing place, Lacq, lay spread out before them—the acres of low white buildings, the silvery aluminium globes, and towering over all the four great chimneys, their black and red plumes of smoke and flame streaming out on the morning breeze.
‘Yes, that’s Lacq. I hope to get a job there sometime; I think it’s one of the most worth-while places in the world’ Nick said, with a fervour which surprised his companion.