Vidor told Ben Quarry on the Friday evening, in a farmhouse loft half a mile from the village of Broennou, ‘I cannot pretend you are – how to say it – what we are needing, at this moment. But,’ – he shrugged – ‘we will do our best, of course. One difficulty is we’re shorthanded, in the present situation.’
‘Could we lend a hand?’
Vidor – scrawny, with thick dark hair but blue-eyed – he was a vet, the only one in this region – stared at him, thinking about it. Nodding, then. ‘Perhaps. Yes. I think…’ The ‘present situation’ being that the réseau was under threat – as he’d been explaining, and as Léon had mentioned briefly in the small hours of the morning on Guenioc island but hadn’t wanted to elucidate – through the arrest in Paris of one of its members, a Frenchman who’d left on the train from Landerneau this last Monday, along with a girl agent who’d landed from M.G.B. 600.
Rosie.
Vidor had known her as ‘Angel’, but it could only have been her. He felt the shock like a kick in the balls. Blinking at the Frenchman for a moment before he found his voice. ‘She wasn’t arrested – was she?’
‘No. Fortunately.’
‘Would you know, if she had been?’
‘The report of his arrest originated with her. She was free then, for sure.’
He let his breath out slowly, thinking God Almighty. Imagining the sheer horror of it… Vidor was saying, about the one who’d been arrested, ‘A tough guy, fortunately.’ Tapping his head: ‘Tough here. But it’s not the only problem we have, not at all… Anyway – there’s work to finish quickly, and I appreciate your offer, Lieutenant.’ Glancing at the two sailors: ‘These two speak no French, eh?’
‘Not a word.’ They were shaking their heads, Bright asking Farr ‘Parly voo, monsewer?’ Ben added, ‘Let me tell you, we’re a darn sight more grateful for what you’re doing for us. Glad to help any way we can.’ He added, in his own Australian-accented, fractured French – Vidor had been using French-accented English, slightly less fractured – ‘After we’ve had some rest, if that’s OK. Be more use to you then.’ Then on a double-take – reminded by the tension in the Frenchman’s weathered face – ‘That arrest’s not all, you say?’
‘No. Unfortunately… But I think only you, Lieutenant. The language problem, you see. Perhaps very difficult – dangerous, could be… Yes. It’s a pity, but – you alone.’ He nodded. ‘You sleep now, someone will come for you in the morning. Before sunrise, perhaps I myself.’
‘Whatever you say.’ He saw the point, more or less. If they were stopped and questioned they’d stand no chance at all of passing themselves off as locals: whereas he just might – to a German’s ears, anyway.
‘What’s the rest of it, Vidor?’
‘The rest… Well – the number of Boches we have here suddenly. Too many, still more arrived today. We had something of the sort around Brest just recently, and I hope it’s the same thing spreading this way, not Guillaume. But—’
‘Guillaume?’
He wasn’t thinking straight yet. They’d had this colossal meal – served shyly by the farmer’s young, very pretty redheaded daughter, name of Solange – eaten it like famished goats, really did need to get their heads down for a few hours. Then – whatever… Vidor was at the door – or hatchway, more like – glancing back at them: ‘It will be all right, don’t worry. Get some sleep. A few hours, I’ll be back.’
He’d heard the gunboat leaving. Probably the worst moment of his life. Well, it was: still was, in memory. The stuff nightmares were made of.
It had been Farr – stroke oar – who’d heard it first, then there’d been thinner, wind-whipped shouts from seasick men in the dinghy’s bow. They’d all been listening then, even Ben with his damaged hearing trying to sort out the bearing of that deep growl of engines as M.G.B. 600 moved out from her anchorage. She’d have to be on a northwesterly course, to clear the island: but where… Competing noise from wind and sea was confusing: especially when you were half-deaf anyway. At one point he’d thought she might be coming straight towards them, sparking simultaneously the fear of being run down and the hope of being spotted and picked up: but the sound had faded quickly, leaving him with an appalling sense of failure, personal and professional ignominy.
All wind and sea noise, total darkness still, the dinghy throwing itself about: forcing himself to decide, through the shame of it, what the hell came next.
Well – bloody obvious. Get back to the island. If you could find that…
The wind would have to be coming in over the port side – port bow, if such accuracy were possible. But they could have been forty yards out, or four hundred. Even steering that sort of course relative to the wind direction you could miss the island altogether, if during all this floundering around you’d been carried further down-wind than you’d reckoned.
He didn’t think they could have been. He thought he wouldn’t have heard that engine-noise so clearly if it hadn’t been damn close. She’d have been on outers only, at low revs and silenced, and there was a lot of surrounding noise.
So hold this course now. Guessing at Hughes’ state of mind: having already hung on longer than he should have, and with dawn not far off, the absolute necessity of having his ship well clear before first light. No option, he’d had to start out: but even so, leaving three of his own men and four passengers, he wouldn’t be feeling exactly jolly.
Bright had yelled something, and Farr had half-turned his head, shouting an answer. All of their weight and strength combined in driving the boat up out of a trough, more black water slopping over here in the stern and the white stuff stinging, ice-cold: hitting the crest then and toppling, beginning the long fall bow-down but for a few seconds in the full force of the wind – where it took all his strength on the sweep-oar to keep her from broaching-to… Farr had shouted ‘Surf – right ahead!’
Meaning, Ben had thought, somewhere ahead. Probably Guenioc, but it could also have been one of the other islands, or rocks. When you were lost, you were lost: and when you couldn’t see a damn thing and didn’t have a compass, ‘navigating’ amounted to little more than hoping for the best. But tell that to these guys, who’d thought they’d be on the way home to England by this time: would have been, but for the bloody Aussie’s fuck-up – was how they’d see it.
It was the truth too. How he saw it. Should have had a compass that worked, to start with – he should have seen to it that they had – and lacking one he should have had a grass line linking the boats. Not in tow, but in touch… He saw the island – the high white rim of surf, and a blackness behind it darker than the night – when they were already almost on it. The dinghy was lifting again and in a fresh rush of horizontal movement surging forward, Ben’s weight on the sweep-oar again holding her against that tendency to wash round to port. Forget wind direction: keeping her stern to the sea was all that mattered. White water boiling gunwale-high as she scooted through it – stern up again, then, bow down – a savage jolt as the forefoot hit sand – only momentarily, thank God. If she’d stuck harder she’d have pivoted and capsized, there’d have been nothing he could have done about it – but she was lifted off in the next second, rushing on and then striking again – solidly enough but at a better angle, with a harsh grinding of sand under her flattish bottom all along her length. Bright and Farr were shipping their oars and leaping out one each side to steady the boat as it drove on, lightened by the loss of two men’s weight: the passengers were out then too, helping to drag her up the beach.
There’d already been a faint lightness in the sky above Presqu’ile Sainte Marguerite. He was checking his surroundings while the others carried the dinghy up well out of the sea’s reach. The beach was steeper here than at Nick Ball’s landing place. If those were rocks to the right, he guessed they’d only just made it, the eastern end of the island. Sheer luck – if this was Guenioc. Touch wood, it had to be – with about the optimum chance of being taken off, he guessed, by Vidor and company. The only other island of comparable size was Tariec, which for any protracted stay would be uncomfortably close to the mainland lookout posts.
One thing was certain, anyway. This had been the last night of the moonless period: there’d be no gunboats calling in the next three weeks.
They’d still been only dark shapes here and there. Faces and personalities would come with the daylight: recriminations too, he supposed. So far they’d gone easy on him. Dark shapes, though, and low voices, finding themselves places where they could sit or sprawl. They’d put the boat in among rocks for cover and had climbed higher now, into an area where there were patches of low scrub. Bristol, the squadron leader, had suggested to the American – Hansen – that although they were the senior men in this party, Lieutenant Quarry knew more about the place than they did and it would make sense to accept his guidance.
Ben had shrugged, in the dark. ‘Gluttons for punishment if you want more of that’, but Hansen either hadn’t heard him, or ignored it, agreeing with Bristol, ‘That’s good thinking… Let’s have your views on our situation and prospects, Lieutenant. You’ll have been here a few times before this, eh?’
‘Never put a foot ashore – but yeah, I know the area – know about it. Enough to say we’d better keep our heads down, and not move around any more than we have to. Not in daylight anyway. Smoking’d be dangerous too. Well – down in the holes, those clefts, I suppose – but in daylight only; at night they’d see any match flare, and we’d have had it. If this is Guenioc there are German coastal defence positions there, there, and there – not to put too fine a point on it, roughly spitting distance.’
‘We had to pass between two of ’em on our way down to the beach.’
‘I suppose you would’ve.’
‘Prospects, then?’
‘Yes… Well, the gunboat – Hughes, my C.O. – will get a signal off to base as soon as he’s far enough out to break wireless silence. With sea conditions as they are, he won’t be making more than about twelve knots, so – four hours’ time, say. Then London’ll get on the air to the Resistance here. This evening, I’d guess, they can’t listen out all day and night, only at certain times. By midnight, anyway, they may know we’re here.’
‘You say they may – not they will?’
‘If they aren’t listening out tonight, don’t get any message—’
‘But chances are they will, eh?’
‘Let’s hope so.’
‘Right. So then, what?’
‘Well – the long and short of it is this moonless period’s finished. There’ll be no gunboat pickups in the next three weeks.’
‘Christ…’
‘Truly have dropped you all in it, haven’t I?’
‘Sticking to practicalities’ – Hansen again – ‘they’ll come for us – the French will – say within a day or so – and hide us another three weeks – right?’
‘Back to square bloody one.’ Bristol’s mutter was barely audible over the surf’s roar. ‘Spent the last fortnight cooped up—’
Ben cut across him: ‘The moon’ll be a limitation, for the French. We could get ourselves over to Tariec in the dinghy. I suppose – but another factor’s the tide, for that slog across the sands.’ He was thinking it out as he went along. ‘We’re stuck here for today, anyway. I suppose they might get to us – might – tomorrow night. I mean tonight – it’s already tomorrow, isn’t it?’
‘Even with a moon, you’re saying, they’ll come out for us?’
‘When it’s set – no moon – why not? Can’t be certain when, mind you – they might have other jobs on hand. The moon, though – should be well up before sunset, and set an hour or two after midnight. If they were ready to move between then and dawn – first light…’ He checked himself: ‘No – pre-dawn, this sort of time. Wouldn’t want to cut it too fine.’
‘If they can, why couldn’t a gunboat?’
‘We’re here, on the spot. It’s not like starting from more than a hundred miles away, with the approach from sea at least an hour, hour and a half say, in easy sight from shore, then another hour or two getting out again.’
‘Right…’
‘Wouldn’t take Einstein, would it?’
That had been the other sergeant. Ben added, ‘I’m assuming, meanwhile, this is Guenioc…’
It was. As dawn’s pinkish light flooded the mainland and the sea, the scattering of islands, half-tide rocks with the sea sporadically pluming up above them, he’d identified all the landmarks. Tariec, for one – about the same size as this and halfway to the mainland coast, directly in the path of the rising sun. Then in more or less full daylight he’d found the container of weapons which Ball had stashed here two nights earlier. It was in a crevice and covered with loose stones and sand, but one corner had been visible. Ball and his boat’s crew hadn’t done a bad job, at that, considering they’d been working in the dark.
Come to think of it, the French might well be coming out to collect the stuff, some time soon. He’d mentioned this to Bristol, and the squadron leader had asked caustically. ‘How soon? A week?’
With no food, no drink either – unless it rained. Bristol – rather froglike features under two or three days’ stubble – had asked him, ‘What’s the distance to Tariec, from that end?’
‘Seven hundred yards, roughly.’ Visualizing the chart, which was pretty well imprinted on his memory. He could have drawn it quite accurately if he’d had a pencil and a sheet of paper. Wasn’t a very experienced small-boat man, that was all – not without a bloody compass, or any mark or light… He told Bristol, ‘Less at low tide – more sand to cross, less rowing… Low water’ll be about ten, say. So eleven a.m. tomorrow, and the sand between Tariec and the mainland’s passable about two hours each side of low water. So if by some miracle – like getting over to Tariec after moonset tonight—’
Hansen had joined them. Ginger stubble on a tanned face, ginger crewcut… ‘How about we do that. Then all we have to do after is look like we’re gathering seaweed. God knows what for…’
‘Manure on their fields.’
‘Huh. Learn one every day, don’t you? But we wouldn’t have the gear – forks, buckets, so forth. And coming, we had a guide, farmer’s daughter, knows where the mines are. Gerries have laid mines along the shore there, do you know that?’
‘Yes. There’s always a guide laid on. Wouldn’t risk it without one. Another problem’d be where we’d go – people around here are all strongly pro-Resistance, they say, but we might still knock on the one and only wrong door. Least, I might…’
He’d spent most of the day asleep or dozing. Hunger gnawing, thirst too: asleep, dreams were mostly of food and drink. You had to keep out of the sun, finding shade among the rocks – because of the thirst factor, let alone the scorching. In intervals of wakefulness when he wasn’t studying the weather – wind dropping, sea still rough but a lot less so than it had been – he thought mostly about Rosie. Half dreaming, on and off – on his back, on sand in a fissure between walls of rock – hearing his own voice that night in the London fog, Fine navigator I’ll make!
She’d laugh, when he reminded her of it and told her about this balls-up. If he ever did get to tell her.
Bloody have to…
He knew – or thought he did – why she’d kept her distance, all this time. Because in the cold light of day – not the dawn, which had been beautiful, truly and seriously marvellous – later, getting-up time, splitting-up time, as it turned out – sober and by the looks of her as hungover as he’d been himself, for some reason she’d been critical of him for not having dossed down in the bath. Some fiction in her mind that he’d told her he was going to – which was plain barmy, would never have occurred to him… And she’d said – repeated – words to the effect that she’d never behaved that way in her life before. She’d remembered how it had been in the dawn, he’d guessed, and it had shocked her. Thrilled him, shocked her… She’d told him, effectively, that she wasn’t that sort of girl, that what he was thinking about her simply wasn’t damn well true, she was not like that – meaning she was not an easy lay, round-heeled, a pushover, etcetera, and ignoring his own fervent protests that it was most certainly not the way he thought of her. Might as well have been talking to a brick wall, though; and since then she’d kept her distance and silence, he guessed in the belief that if she’d agreed to see him again he’d have assumed she was ready for more of the same.
On those lines, anyway. That morning she’d paid no attention to anything he’d said. He’d been on his knees at one stage, imploring her to listen, hear this, believe it… She’d been very mixed up. Stood to reason – her husband being killed so recently, for one thing. Oh, God yes – she’d called his name. In the dawn – making love, the best he’d ever known it, really he’d learnt then how it could be – she’d called him not Ben, but Johnny.
The others were being very decent about all this, he’d thought. Not a word of blame. Although he, no-one else, was responsible for the fact they weren’t in England by this time. And they were hungry and very, very thirsty.
Hansen’s only comment had been, ‘Guess it could’ve happened to anyone.’ He’d added, ‘Nelson, even. Right?’
‘Nelson would have made sure he did have a compass.’
Bristol, then, pointing skyward – he seemed to have got over his sulks – ‘I’ve been lost – up there. Had a compass all right, still got lost. Couple of times, to be honest. Anyway, you got us back on terra firma – which I can tell you I for one was glad of – to put it mildly.’
‘Hear, hear. If that’s life on the ocean wave—’
‘You can have it.’ McDonnell, sergeant-pilot, formerly of Cork City, agreed. Reminding his friend Dunlop, ‘Spewed all over me, you bugger… Sure they won’t come back for us, even with that bloody thing?’
Meaning the new moon, a pale sliver well up and visible even this early – as Ben had known it would be. He told him no, not a chance. Three weeks…
‘Here?’ Tommo Farr, the Welshman…
‘Always swim for it, couldn’t we?’
‘Where to?’
Chat: most of it pointless: only maintaining contact, confirming to themselves as the light went that they were all in the same hole together. Whys and wherefores and whose fault it was hadn’t seemed to come into it – except for A.B. Bright musing at one stage, ‘Beats me Mr Ball didn’t stick close. Seeing as he had a fucking compass and he knew we didn’t.’
‘Had his own hands full. The same problems we had.’ Ben had added, ‘I was supposed to stick to him, not the other way about. Only wish now we’d had a line between us. A grass would’ve been the thing.’
‘Could’ve been awkward, that, sir.’
Welsh intonation, through the darkness. Then Bright’s mutter ‘Not this fucking awkward.’
The true answer, Ben thought, was that he shouldn’t have been looking for lights on shore, should have kept his eyes fixed on Ball’s boat.
Squadron Leader Bristol came from Nettlebed, in Oxfordshire, Charles Hansen from Michigan, McDonnell was an Irishman and Sergeant-Pilot Dunlop was from Blyth, Northumberland. He and Hansen were the only married men in the party: the American had got himself tied up, as he put it, only a few days before leaving for England.
‘Wish you hadn’t now, do you?’
‘Hell, no.’ Then second thoughts: ‘Well – some ways, maybe. Like right now, I guess… You have a girl or two, Aussie, do you?’
‘One, that matters.’
‘And where’s she?’
‘Good question…’
He’d wondered, while most of the others slept, where she might be, and doing what… In fact she’d been in Rouen that Thursday night, her second night at the Bonhommes’ bakery in Rue de la Cigogne, but of course all he’d known was that she had to be somewhere in France. Picturing her in his mind – and trying to understand himself, how he’d not thought about her much in the last year or so, then happened to glance up at the old paddle-steamer’s rail, and – incredibly – there she’d been, and he was in it up to his eyes again.
The noise of the surf had a regular pattern to it, when you’d been listening to it for a while. What seemed at first to be a continuous roar had its separate components: the explosion and rush of each heavy sea crashing in, its thunder up the slope of the beach dissolving into a hiss of withdrawal just seconds before the next one… The wind was down, he realized. By morning there’d probably be only a swell breaking on the beaches and very little white elsewhere.
Very little food, either. In fact none. No water either – and that was a lot worse. Bloody serious, in fact. But – tomorrow night – touch wood. If Vidor didn’t show up then – well, just have to chance it, get ashore, moon or no moon. Licking cracked lips – and trying not to, trying to put thirst out of mind. How long could a man last without even a sip of water, he wondered?
‘Quarry. Hey, Quarry…’
‘Huh?’
Hansen was crouching beside him: a shape in the darkness identifiable only by that Yank accent. Others were moving too, though: there were movements and voices in the background.
A French voice?
Dreaming…
No moon, now. Early morning, therefore. Hansen telling him, ‘Frog with a boat, Lieutenant, come to take us off.’
Sitting… ‘Vidor?’ He called in French – what he called French – ‘Is that Vidor there?’
‘No. It’s Léon… Who’s that, someone speaks French?’
‘Damn little…’ He switched back into it, though – such as it was… ‘I’m Lieutenant Quarry, from the gunboat, M.G.B. 600.’
‘You have a peculiar accent, you know that?’
‘Pure Australian.’
‘Ah. Well, never mind… But listen – there are seven of you, that correct?’
‘Yes. We’ve our own boat too.’
‘OK. We’ll use it. That’s good – we have to take the guns, you see, the container. In your boat maybe, and tow it. Get over to Tariec now while it’s dark enough, and later they’ll come with a cart – for the algue, eh?’ Algue meaning wrack, seaweed. Léon had climbed up to him: a man of about his own height, shaking hands with him and then more perfunctorily with the others. Ben tried his French again: ‘I’d thought the best we could hope for was tomorrow night.’
‘I was coming for the container anyway. There’s trouble – we have to shift a lot of stuff – a lot more than this, I tell you. But there was a message about you so I brought the larger boat.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
‘Maybe none. Could be, that’s all. Let’s get a move on, hunh?’
They’d made it to Tariec, and hidden the dinghy high and dry and under a heap of rotting seaweed. Léon had stayed with them, watching the tide fall, and in mid-morning they’d seen the cart and a team of seaweed-gatherers coming out over the sand. They’d brought a barrico of water in the cart, also some bread and dried fish. The container had been loaded – on the blind side of the island – and the seven foreigners had climbed in too, under a covering of seaweed which had become heavier and wetter during the cart’s slow transit back to the mainland, five Frenchmen – four plus Léon – sporadically tossing forkfuls of the wrack in on top of them, for the benefit of any watching German soldiery.
Then off the beach, up steeply on to a farm track, the men’s shoulders at the wheels to help the poor old horse. Earthy Breton language…
At Broennou – at this farmhouse, on the edge of the coastal village, which had one of the German gun-emplacements immediately to the south of it – there’d been an ambulance waiting, a gazogène conversion which if its driver had been questioned would allegedly have brought the old farmer home after he’d had treatment for his gammy leg – he was very lame, his daughter Solange seemed to run the place – and the four airmen had transferred to it. There wouldn’t have been room for more than three in the hayloft, so Ben and his two seamen were to stay here while the others were taken on to some other billet. Léon had shaken hands with everyone again, and disappeared, and Vidor had turned up when the three of them had been finishing an enormous tureen of fish, turnips and potatoes. It had been brought up to them in the loft by Alain – a boy of about sixteen with a mongoloid look about him, dribble on his chin – and ladled out into bowls by the daughter, Solange, who came up with Vidor. She had a shy smile and green eyes, spoke no English at all but seemed amused by Ben’s Australian accent. Vidor told them when he arrived that she sometimes acted as a guide through the minefields on the foreshore.
The boy wasn’t any relation. The farmer and his wife – Solange’s long-dead mother – had taken him in years ago after his own family had thrown him out.
Vidor explained – in the dawn, riding bicycles side by side through deep, stony lanes – ‘Our caches of munitions have to be moved to other locations as soon as possible. If we had more men we’d do it all at the same time, but we’re too few for that. So your offer to help’s most welcome.’
‘Because you’ve lent some for this sabotage job?’
‘Exactly.’ He’d mentioned it last night. ‘All happening at once. As always.’
‘The action’s at Brest, you said?’
‘Near Brest. A factory at St Renan. They make periscope sections for U-boats.’
‘Worthy cause.’ He nodded, stooped over the handlebars. ‘I’m definitely for that.’
‘Unfortunately there’s always a reaction. Hostages, so forth. One doesn’t mount such an operation without the best of reasons. But this one was planned weeks ago. So happens, it could have a beneficial effect – for us – if some of the troops they’ve been deploying here were withdrawn to police the St Renan district, after this. The Master Race sometimes act like headless chickens, you know?’
‘Why should the next-door réseau need your people?’
‘Because of the security clampdown in their area. It’s made complications for them.’
‘Ah. Suppose it would. Although from what you say you’re getting a similar state of affairs here now… Can you tolerate another question?’
‘Why not?’
‘Couldn’t this factory be hit from the air?’
‘It could. But there are houses close all round it – very close. Bombing’s not always so accurate, is it? Our way, explosives are placed on the machines or in them, it’s certain – and families living nearby aren’t hurt.’
‘Except for the reprisals?’
‘You see, we can’t give in to that. We’d be living on our knees. What they want, the bastards.’
‘There’ll be a guard on the place, presumably?’
A grunt. ‘Such things will have been taken into account.’
‘They’ll have their throats cut, you mean.’
‘Well – could be greater tragedies… Turn to the right here.’
‘I see what you meant about not needing us here, just at this moment.’
‘Never mind. I’m grateful for your help. Anyway, if they withdraw some of their soldiers it won’t be so bad. Depends – I think – on whether or not this infestation is connected with the arrest of Guillaume. I hope not… But he was carrying explosive with him, you see. Figure it to yourself – if they get to believe there’s a dump on this small neck of land – a farmer with a cache on his place, say – if they take his wife and children, shut them in the barn and tell him they’ll put a match to it. Huh? If you were that farmer?’
‘Christ…’
‘They’ve done such things before. And look – if for instance our man is able to hold out – in Paris, Avenue Foch or Rue des Saussais, wherever, poor sod – but if they only know he was here or nearby, it would be enough. Or of course if they break him. They haven’t yet – if they had they’d have been here. He may be dead…’
‘Meanwhile you move the stuff anyway.’
‘Certainly. We ourselves could disperse at short notice. Join the Maquis, for instance. Those without wives or children anyway, it’s much easier for us. But the rifles, machine guns, mortars, ammunition – we’ve all risked our necks for it – so have you, your people – and one day – soon, please God—’
‘Hey, look—’
Lights ahead. Car or lorry, facing this way. It was stationary, by the look of it. Waste of its battery: it was virtually daylight now. Vidor said, ‘If it’s police or Germans – act dumb.’ Peering ahead, slowing slightly but not by much. ‘I’ll talk for both of us. You’re my assistant – Félix, all right?’
The only Felix he’d ever heard of was a cartoon cat.
‘I’ve no papers, if—’
‘I’m on my way to castrate a donkey. I need you only to sit on the animal’s head while I do it. You’re a bit slow on the uptake – you don’t articulate too well, either.’
It was a Wehrmacht troop-transport. Lights burning but no-one on or in it, and no barrier on the road. But there was a cottage – farmhouse, maybe – set back to the left, a light glimmering in an upstairs window – candle or lantern maybe… A shout – German-sounding, but some way off, from the direction of the house. Vidor gritted, ‘Keep going. We’re in luck.’ That they hadn’t left even a driver with the truck, he must have meant. Vidor put all his weight on the pedals, pushing the bike along hard, Ben doing the same although he’d dropped in behind him, about a length between them. Passing through the aura of the transport’s yellow lights: then Vidor was out of it, and so was he: there’d been no more shouts. Vidor glancing round: ‘Made it. Left fork in a minute.’
He was easing off, and they were coming to the fork. Tall hedges overhanging, cutting out enough light to put the clock back by an hour or so. Side by side again: Vidor told him, ‘That was lucky. For us… This is a slightly longer route, a way they won’t take.’
‘Pointing the other way – wasn’t it?’
‘Nothing to stop them turning. When they’ve finished whatever they’re doing at the Demorêts. It won’t be just a social call, for sure.’
‘Farmers, are they?’
‘They raise ducks and turkeys. Damn it, I can guess what the swine may be there for…’
The shot came sharp as a whipcrack – rifle-shot, therefore – from somewhere behind them. A single shot, then a pause, and then a rattle of automatic fire, its echo fading into what sounded at first like a dog’s howl but resolved itself into a human scream. A woman – in horror, despair, extreme of pain… Imagination played its part: the scream had been cut short and one envisaged a blow, a rifle-butt… Vidor shouted, ‘Keep going. I’ll come back, later. Christ Almighty…’
He fell silent – more or less – and Ben kept quiet too. It wasn’t time for comment or for questions. Being out of one’s element and having an enquiring mind – as well as fairly acute anxiety – one tended to ask too many, anyway. Uphill stretch here, legs aching from strains they weren’t used to… Vidor burst out with it suddenly: ‘They have a son who escaped from a work-camp in Germany, arrived back here in the middle of the night – a month or six weeks ago. It happens often enough, I may say, I know of several who’ve done it, but this Demorêt lad – Youen, that’s his name – was lying low at home instead of going to join the Maquis right away. If he’s still there – Christ, his parents face a death penalty for harbouring him, even. How d’you like that – for “harbouring” your own son?’
‘Where’s the Maquis, that he’d have joined?’
‘All over. Mountainsides, forest areas – wild parts, not easily accessible. Some bands are several hundred strong, others much smaller.’
‘Do the Boches leave them alone?’
‘Go after them sometimes. Sometimes they send their French units. So-called Frenchmen.’
This had to be Landeda now, though. A scattering of houses and hovels thickening considerably ahead. Church spire ahead too, with the sun behind it like a skewered orange. The garage was on the outskirts of the village, was all Vidor had told him: having done enough pedalling for one morning, he hoped it might be on this side of it.
Vidor muttered, ‘Didn’t have to be looking for the Demorêt boy, though. Could be just taking pot luck. Some ways, that could be worse… Incidentally, we’re going to have to move you anyway, before long.’
‘Is there a connection?’
A grunt. ‘As much as anything, it is the strain on such a small ménage. Food and cooking, for one thing – Solange doesn’t have many minutes to spare, in her days. Not really the resources either. But mostly, it’s bloody dangerous for them – and too close to our islands, eh?’
To Guenioc and Tariec, he’d have meant.
‘So you’ll move us – where to?’
‘I don’t know yet. But if they’re going to start searching isolated farms like the Demorêts’ – Jesus Christ…’ Then: ‘Sorry. But they’re such good people. The best. Or they were. You know, I can’t believe it – that we actually heard it…’ And after another pause: ‘Might not be easy for us to stay in business here, the way things look.’
‘The pinpoint?’
‘It’s – a possibility. One has to be ready for such contingencies.’
‘Would you get out, yourself?’
‘No. I’ve my job here. I mean the farms, the animals. Léon has his too – he’s a farmer’s son but he has a boat, spends most of his time fishing and potting for crabs and lobsters. And Luc – our radio man – he has his own job too – works in the café – he’d stick around. Well – touch wood, if we were left alive and free, in this hypothetical situation…’
‘As you see it, it is only hypothetical, then.’
‘It’s as I say – to be ready for it – for whatever—’
‘Another thing I was going to ask – what about our boat, down there?’
‘It’s still there. Well covered. The best place it could be, right now.’
‘But if they found it—’
‘Then it’s curtains.’
‘Couldn’t we land it – in that cart, under seaweed?’
‘You’d need to hide it somewhere ashore. Anyone would know at a glance it’s not a local boat. Not easy to hide, either. Break it up – that’s possible… But the best way is the next moonless time, next gunboat visit – you take it with you, eh?’
‘If there is another gunboat visit here. And it stays hidden for a fortnight.’
‘Exactly. One can only – keep one’s nerve, say one’s prayers… Down here now, we’ve arrived.’
The garage was at the bottom of a short cul-de-sac. It was a rickety-looking barn made of tarred planking: wide doors standing open, semi-wrecked vehicles dumped all over about half an acre of dockweeds. Vidor freewheeled down the pot-holed slope and straight in, calling as he dismounted, ‘Anyone home?’
‘Ah. It’s you.’
Ben followed him down, and in, dismounting. Preparing to be introduced – as the village idiot, no doubt, more or less incapable of speech. He could guess what had put that in Vidor’s mind – the boy at the farm, Alain. And he’d be looking the part well enough, he guessed, in the old farmer’s ancient gear-patched work-trousers, torn jacket, a sweater with holes in it and one sleeve mostly unravelled. The girl had brought this lot to him, at Vidor’s request. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days either. Must look bloody marvellous, he thought: stand me in a field, keep all the crows away… Vidor was shaking hands with a shrimp-like, elderly man in clean brown overalls. Long chin, small hooked nose, wisps of grey hair plastered across his scalp. Vidor introduced them: ‘Paul Durand…’ Jerk of a thumb: ‘Call this one Félix. He’s kindly offered to help. Doesn’t talk much French and he has no papers – keep him out of sight, eh?’
‘No French and no papers. Gift from the gods, I don’t think.’ The little man hadn’t shaved much lately, either.
‘I do talk some French.’
‘What sort of accent’s that?’
‘Would you believe Australian?’
They heard the lorry then: firing on no more than three cylinders, backing down the slope – and finally, into the barn. The man at the wheel, craning round to look backwards, could have been a farmer. Durand called, ‘Jacques, come here!’ in a high, noise-penetrating yelp, and a boy in oily dungarees appeared, still chewing, from some nether region. Vidor and the lorry driver were shaking hands, and the driver – a big man with a large belly – was telling him, ‘A lead off one plug, is all. Others are oily anyway, but I want ’em that way, we’ll break down again at Bodilis, see… How’s it with you, then? Boches a bit too thick on the bloody ground, aren’t they?’
‘When we passed, they were paying the Demorêt place a visit. There was some shooting.’
‘Bloody hell…’
‘I’m going back there – snoop around—’
‘Well, for Pete’s sake—’
‘From the back, across the fields. I’ll be like a mouse.’
‘Yeah. Mice get caught, remember.’
The inspection-pit, immediately behind the lorry, was stacked with rifles, Sten guns and ammunition. The boy Jacques was prising up the boards that covered it, using an iron bar. Vidor explained to Ben, drawing him aside, that the old man – Durand – would busy himself now with the malfunctioning engine, at the same time keeping his eyes open for unwelcome visitors, while Ben, the driver and the boy would load the cargo into the back of the lorry, then rope a tarpaulin over it and on top of that spread a load of scrap-iron.
‘That lot there. For the railway siding at Landivisiau, supposedly – en route to the Ruhr, they send whole truckloads when they have them full. But you’ll be stopping en route at a church where the cure has a tomb open and ready for this lot, he’s expecting you. The lorry’ll have more engine trouble, young Jacques’ll be working on it while you unload. But listen – there’ll be another transfer you can help with tomorrow – the last, thank heaven – so best stay here tonight – in Durand’s house – over there. He’ll give you a meal and a bed. I’ll see you tomorrow. Meanwhile I’ll try to move your men from old Brodard’s place. I think that’s wise… See you tomorrow, anyway.’
‘By then will you have had news about the action at St Renan?’
‘Before that. This morning, I expect.’
He put his hand out. ‘Good luck.’
‘Same to you. And thanks.’
Calling au revoirs to the others, then, Vidor wheeled his machine out into the slanting early sunshine. Ben wondered as he went to work what the hell would happen if Vidor – the king-pin in all of this – ran into trouble at the turkey farm, got himself shot or arrested. Stooping to grab the rope handle of an ammo box: thinking Bloody chaos…