Four

 

Nobody stopped them. But at the other side was another officer who said no one was allowed into the city without a laissez passer.

‘Where do I get that?’ Mrs Darby was doing the talking now and they let her because she was a formidable woman and she was doing remarkably well.

The officer pointed to a building that looked like a school. It had a tricolour over the door.

Without argument, a tired-looking lieutenant handed over a laissez passer to cover the whole party. ‘Pour aller et retour pour porter une lettre au Consul Brittanique’ was the reason it gave.

It didn’t make it sound as if their journey was very important but it was signed with the officer’s name and rank, with a large blob of sealing wax at the bottom to make it look official. It also bore the numbers of their cars and all their names.

As they moved into the outer suburbs of the city they had to pass through several barriers but nobody asked to see the laissez passer. Bordeaux was crammed with people, lorries, motor cars and bicycles, all bumping along the cobbled streets. There were cranes everywhere, like gigantic gallows against the sky, and what appeared to be hundreds of British all seeking ships. German aircraft seemed to be overhead all the time but no bombs fell and they learned at one of the shipping offices that they were dropping mines in the river mouth.

Trams were running along the quays and through the main thoroughfare, but the place was like a madhouse. There wasn’t an inch of room anywhere and people were moving about like a crowd of depressed holiday-makers on a rainy day, staring with melancholy distress at the shop windows and the old houses.

They swarmed everywhere. Centres for refugees were advertised on every corner and the cars they saw had the number plates of half a dozen nations. Crowds were outside the churches, and the Place de la Comédie, a sad dignified centre where several streets met, was besieged by a rabble of terrified travellers. A theatre was being used as a temporary Chambre des Députés and people huddled in the portico hoping to find out what to do.

The Place des Quinconces, a large square open to the river, was packed with cars. A fair had been about to start and the site was marked by half-built pavilions. From the local paper they learned that the fighting at Saumur was over. The bridges had fallen, and the Germans were driving deep into Burgundy. There was a map of France with a line showing where they were, and another line showing how much of France they were demanding. It reduced the country to a quarter of its size, with no access to the sea except on the Mediterranean.

As they struggled down the main thoroughfare, they were held up by a policeman.

‘Le gouvernement,’ he said. ‘A meeting in progress.’

They had to wait for half an hour until, from one of the buildings alongside, they saw men in suits and uniforms emerging. Among them were Weygand and Reynaud, both looking harassed, old and ill.

‘The collapse committee,’ Darby observed.

‘Half the French Cabinet are here,’ Dominique said bitterly. ‘Together with their wives and mistresses.’

‘The rich and the powerful,’ Montrouge commented unexpectedly, ‘will always survive.’

Further on they were held up again, this time by a procession of men with drums and trumpets who were led by a man wearing a sash of office and carrying a tricolour draped with black crepe. These marchers stopped at a memorial covered with names and dated 1914–1918. It had an angel with wings standing in a defiant attitude over a dying soldier, every bit of it plastered with pigeon droppings.

‘Small men,’ Dominique said coldly, ‘honouring better men than they are.’

They were growing hungry and the café terraces were packed. But, as someone rose and left, they managed to crowd round a table and order a snack. The noise of voices around them was tremendous, and among the thousands of people in the city Woodyatt felt safe enough to relax.

Montrouge sat slightly apart, not facing the rest of the party, and it occurred to Woodyatt that he was trying to avoid facing the formidable Mrs Darby. She rarely took her eyes off him and whenever he did meet her gaze he looked the other way at once.

The waiter was young and handsome in an almost girlish way. He slipped swiftly between the tables, moving sinuously with lithe movements of his slender body. He was whistling gaily as he went, totally untouched by the tremendous tragedy taking place about him. The sun was hot and, in the atmosphere of panic that hung over the place, the air seemed stifling. A woman nearby was counting money on a table. A fat man was telling his neighbours that he had struggled all the way up France from the Italian border. A girl was weeping. She was extraordinarily pretty and Woodyatt found himself watching her simply because she was so good-looking. Darby was watching her, too, and so were most of the other men. Even the man complaining of his struggle up from the South of France and the husband of the woman counting her money.

Montrouge remained detached, indifferent to what was being said, as if he held the frightened middle-class people about him, and their conventions, in contempt. Woodyatt studied him. He looked surprisingly alert. This was no Pétain bowed down with age, he decided. Montrouge seemed remarkably fit, in fact, and he suspected that all the weakness, all the weariness he had shown, had been put on especially for his escort’s benefit.

Woodyatt was beginning to suspect, even, that he was being used and had been for some time: exploited by Pullinger for revenge, and by the old man to gain safety. The truth of the situation, he realised suddenly, could well be that Montrouge was some rogue who was manipulating him for his own ends and his stories were merely offerings to confuse him, to make him feel the man he had with him was Redmond when in fact he was not.

One thing was sure. He had to get the old bastard to England in case he was Redmond. What he had told them was so startling it made Woodyatt’s mission twice as grave.

He tried to push the old man to the back of his mind. There was enough going on around him to absorb his attention. The woman was still counting her money. The fat man who had complained of his struggle from the South had grabbed the waiter’s arm. The boy was standing alongside him, faintly bored as the man questioned his friends on their choice. The girl was still weeping, sitting quietly alone, tears on her face, lost in desperate unhappiness, her beauty drawing every male eye to her. Was she weeping for a lost husband? A dead lover? A missing child?

Then, suddenly, Woodyatt realised that out of all the men on the crowded terrace only one had no eyes for her. It was Montrouge and he was looking at the handsome waiter. His eyes followed him everywhere he went, hungrily, lost in a sort of daydream.

They drove to the consul’s office in silence. It was already under siege by dozens of people all wanting passes for British ships. It took them some time to fight their way to a man who stood behind a desk. He said the consul was due to leave and only a few clerks were remaining to handle the business. The hall of the consulate was full of luggage. Outside people who had petrol were loading their cars for the journey to St Jean de Luz and Spain. A train full of expatriate British had just left and those who had missed it were clamouring for another to be assembled.

‘I must see the consul,’ Woodyatt insisted and eventually they managed to get an interview. The consul looked worn out.

‘I have your boarding passes,’ he informed Darby. ‘The problem is ships. There’s nothing leaving tonight, though there may be something tomorrow. Try the docks. The passes will take you aboard any ship that’s available. If nothing comes in – and perhaps nothing will, because the Germans have been dropping mines in the river – try Le Verdon.’

Woodyatt knew Le Verdon, but couldn’t imagine it being a good port of embarkation. It lay on the other side of the River Gironde at the end of the long peninsula that pointed north like a spearhead towards Britain. It was well out of the German’s reach but it was very small, and boarding ship would probably have to be done from boats.

‘I’d advise getting there early,’ the consul said. ‘German aircraft are active over the river.’

With his help, Woodyatt got off a telegram to Pullinger demanding aid, stating where he was and that he had a man he believed to be Redmond.

Darby was unhappy about staying in the area of the town and wanted to head immediately for Le Verdon. They could hear aircraft about and he was afraid that a bombing raid might prevent them getting across the river.

‘They’ve only to seal the entrance to the river,’ he said, ‘and nothing will get away.’

In the end they decided to seek a hotel outside Bordeaux but elected to eat before they left the city.

They found a large restaurant on the outskirts. As they sat down the radio began. ‘Ici Radio-Journal de France.’ Everything came to a stop. The waitresses halted and conversation died. The first thing on the news was an announcement that the Cabinet had met; that the government had decided that power should be given to some man enjoying the respect of the nation, and that Marshal Philippe Pétain had been asked to assume the reins of government. As the name was spoken there was a gasp round the restaurant.

‘God help France,’ Montrouge said in a flat voice. ‘It was said of him at the Ecole de Guerre that if he ever rose above the rank of major it would be a disaster.’

He was hushed to silence by the people around him and Pétain’s voice came. He spoke with the wavering tones of a tired old man.

‘By request of the Republic,’ he said, ‘I have today assumed the direction of the government of France.’ A few of the worn clichés well-known to all politicians followed, then he went on that his heart went out to the army struggling against an enemy superior in numbers and equipment, and to the unhappy refugees who were crowding the roads. He finally ended with ‘It is with a heavy heart that I say we must cease the fight, and last night I communicated with the enemy to ask if he is ready to seek with us, as between soldiers, after the conflict and with honour, a way to end hostilities.’

The dismal voice droned on until an ill-timed gramophone record played the ‘Marseillaise’, announcing to the listeners that ‘Le jour de gloire est arrivé.’

‘The day of glory?’ a disgusted voice said. ‘This?’

‘God help France,’ Montrouge said again, his voice sharp with contempt. ‘Poincaré decided, even in 1917 when Pétain was at the height of his fame, that he was a defeatist at heart.’

The packed restaurant had become still. The news had been totally unexpected. Then a man shouted, his voice crashing across the silent room. ‘Vive la France!’

For a moment the cry was ignored, then a few people responded until finally the whole restaurant was at it, yelling as hard as they could, in defiance, relief or sheer misery.

Dominique remained motionless, her face stiff, but there was a strange exalted glow in her eyes, as if she had suddenly seen some light in the darkness.

Woodyatt sat in silence. Not long before, Reynaud had said it didn’t matter if the whole of France were captured; the fight would continue from North Africa. And now had come this humiliating surrender. As they left, hurriedly scrawled placards announcing the new government were already appearing on the street.

They headed for the outskirts of the town. Darby was leading, driving fast and moving dexterously in and out of the other vehicles. Woodyatt tried to stay on his tail but at the first traffic lights a string of cars from a side road slipped between them.

Somehow defeat didn’t seem possible. There was no visible bomb damage and – apart from the crowds, the overloaded cars and the occasional weeping woman no sign of despair. It looked more like an overcrowded holiday season than anything else. The shops they passed were packed with goods, clothes, cakes, chocolates, perfume, wines – though the tabacs all seemed to have notices outside to indicate they had sold out of cigarettes. From time to time they passed ambulances carrying the wounded, but they couldn’t tell whether they were victims of air raids or evacuees from the battles in the North, brought to Bordeaux by sea.

Eventually they cleared the town and found themselves in sandy country wooded with pines. There were a few other cars and the noise of the engines prevented them hearing the aircraft. Almost before they were aware of it, Woodyatt heard the rattle of guns and a whoo-oosh as an aeroplane passed low overhead.

‘For God’s sake,’ he snarled, ‘I thought the bloody war was over!’

Drawing into the side of the road, he halted the car under a group of pines and they scrambled out. Montrouge refused to budge. Woodyatt didn’t argue. He dragged the old man roughly from his seat and, with Dominique on the other side of him, they ran for the side of the road. Pushing the old man down, Woodyatt put his arm round the girl and together they lay on the ground, surrounded by other people, all yelling with fright. Dominique made no sound, lying half-beneath Woodyatt, her cheek against his.

A stick of bombs burst a little further along the road then the howl of engines died. Woodyatt rose to his feet and pulled Dominique after him, leaving Montrouge to follow. Somewhere ahead, someone was wailing and he realised that one of the bombs had fallen on the road. A car was on its side burning and a group of people were staring at it. A woman lay a little further along, silent and still beside her bicycle. Then he saw Daphne Darby and the expression on her face set him running.

Darby lay at her feet and she had taken off her coat and placed it under his head. There was blood on his face and in the thick grey hair.

Dominique knelt and felt his pulse, then she crossed herself and lifted her face to Woodyatt’s. Daphne Darby understood. She drew a deep breath and her body stiffened.

Bending down and covering her husband’s face, she rose tiredly. ‘We’d better get on our way,’ she said. ‘I wonder if you’d be kind enough to offer me a lift.’