He could hardly have foreseen that his first full day as a
secret agent would begin with a session of chopping wood. He
sweated in the early sunshine and wondered where Marie-Thérèse was. Even as he thought of her she appeared at the small gate at the end of the back garden of the house. Seeing him she stopped and, for the first time since they had been together, he saw her laugh without restraint. She laughed like
a young girl, her hands trying to cover her mouth. 'Oh my God,
Dodo,' she mocked. 'You are a wood-chopper!'
'Go on, enjoy yourself,' he said bitterly. 'This is not the worst of it. I had to sleep in the same bed as that old hag last night. I'm having a bloody marvellous time, believe me. I think I'll surrender to the Germans.'
The very mention of the word seemed enough to bring her
seriousness back. She advanced up the path. She looked fresh
and pink, her hair just curling over the blue jersey. 'It is good that you look like one of the islanders,' she said. 'We must be part of the landscape.'
'Any sign of the Boche?' he said. He realized that he had used her word. She noticed it.
'They have radioed to the lighthouse asking if the two soldiers
have been seen,' she shrugged. 'But it seems their fishing trip was not official. Their officers did not know.'
'Taken French leave, eh?' he said. 'That's if Germans can take French leave.'
'Their comrades are trying to find them - also unofficially,'
she went on. 'They do not want to make too much stir because
they will make trouble with their own officers. The men are not permitted to come this far out to sea.'
Ormerod put the chopper down. He bawled towards the house: 'Is this enough missus?' The woman came to the door,
saw Marie-Thérèse and with no change of expression went into
the shadows again. Clement came out and, seeing the girl, beamed like a child and went forward to shake her hand.
'Can we expect them out here with a boat soon?' asked Ormerod. "They won't leave it too long.'
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'By tonight,' she said. 'They can ask their questions and once
they have gone we can go to the mainland and begin work.'
'They'll have to report their pals missing - officially - sooner
or later,' pointed out Ormerod. 'Then they'll be back to search for the boat. I hope to God the bodies don't float to the surface.'
She shook her head. 'The rocks in the net weighed them down. Also there is a lot of weed in the place where we drowned them. The weather is changing too. They may find the boat but they won't find the men. They will think they
have just gone missing on a fishing trip. Many people have.'
He split a log with a single blow of the chopper. Clement was impressed and clapped. Marie-Thérèse said: 'I think it would be a good thing if we walked right around this island. It will give us some idea of how the land is. Just in case we need to move at night. In case they start looking for their friends. Has madame given you some breakfast?'
'No, but I think I'll skip it. She's more dangerous than the
Jerries. If it's anything like the coffee, I'll never finish this
assignment on two feet. I'll come with you now.' He handed the chopper to Clement. 'Here son,' he said. 'You have a bash.'
Doubtfully the youth took the implement and Ormerod quietly went towards the back gate with Marie-Thérèse. They
let themselves out and began to walk over the filmy morning
grass towards the north of Chausey. Behind them they heard the blows of the chopper as Clement attacked the wood.
five
They walked, at first unhurriedly, to the top of as much of a hill as the island could boast. The grass was springy beneath their feet and the undergrowth gave off a ferny smell. Once
Marie-Thérèse slipped and Ormerod put out his hand to assist her, but she waved it away as if ashamed that she had lost her
footing.
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From the top of the hill, which was not much more than a knoll, they could see the entire island and all the satin sea around them. The tide was running away and the off-shore islands and rocks were humped like cattle. The autumn morning sun was increasing in strength and the sky was without
clouds. Below them they could view the everyday domestic life
of the settlement going on like a ritual dance. Some of the
men were loading an obese boat with lobster kreels, two women
did their washing in tin tubs outside their cottages and carried
the cleansed clothes to hang on long poles in the breeze. Dogs sat and watched and cats slouched on walls. From the school-
house the sound of high reciting voices drifted to them.
At every inlet and cape of the island the sea eased itself against sand and rocks without hurry, in the manner of a
besieging army that knows it will never break a fortress. The
small fields of the island were easy green and cattle moved as
if every step were carefully considered. To the south the light
house stood in its daytime doze and to the north the house called the chateau stood on the end cliff like a solitary man looking hopefully towards England. And France, a low but distant horseshoe of land, curved around the eastern horizon. Ormerod sat down heavily and took it all in.
'Bit peaceful for a war, isn't it?' he observed to Marie-Thérèse.
She stood beside him for a moment, as if she were guarding
him, then she dropped with a sigh to the turf and sat down a yard away. 'Everything is too peaceful,' she said unhappily. 'Nobody seems to realize that there
is
a war.'
'Don't you know there's a war on?' He mimicked the slogan he had heard bandied about so much in England. She remembered it too. She laughed wryly.
'Anyway,' he said. 'At least you can
see
France.'
'Yes, I see it,' she replied quietly.
'How long have you been away?'
'Almost a year,' she said to his surprise. I went to London in November. I returned for a few days at Christmas and then I went back again to England.'
I didn't realize that,' he said. I thought you'd probably gone over about the time of Dunkirk with all the others who got away.'
She shook her head. 'No, I was training for this,' she replied. Her chin dropped sadly. 'I never thought France would surrender. I did not imagine it could happen. I thought I would be training to go to Austria or Poland. But not France. Not my own country.'
Just off-shore the gulls had found some fish debris floating on the surface and whirled about it like pieces of paper caught in a wind spout. The men below them had finished landing the boat and were sitting on the stones around the beach drinking coffee. One of the washing women was singing tunelessly, plaintively and the thin song came to them on their hillock.
'Where's this place St Jean le Thomas?' asked Ormerod, looking at the vague horizon. He said it more to bring her from her chagrin than anything.
'It is about that point,' she said, pointing to the south-east. 'Perhaps we will land there. It has a long beach and it is quiet. The Germans must watch it but there is very much to watch. Perhaps we will get so far by boat and swim the rest.'
I can't swim,' Ormerod told her. 'Didn't they tell you that?'
She sighed. 'I thought perhaps you could not,' she said, shaking her head. 'You get better and better.'
'If I'm not satisfactory, send me home,' he suggested. 'Please.'
She apologized suddenly. 'I am unreasonable,' she said. 'But you must realize how I feel. I have been training all this time and then they send me with ... well ... you.'
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'Take it from me, it wasn't my idea.'
'Of course not. But for God's sake the matter could have been planned better by that mad boy who lives down there.'
Ormerod nodded. 'From what I saw of the briefing officers in England that lad would be a colonel in no time,' he agreed. 'Where's Granville?'
'It is above St Jean le Thomas. So it would be about there.' She pointed to the left of the lighthouse dome. 'I hope we will be able to begin our work in Granville. There must be the opportunity to form a resistance group, if one is not begun already.'
'You certainly haven't had a lot of luck here with this bunch,' observed Ormerod, looking down at the miniature men still idling on the shores of the beach. Brightly coloured children
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came out into the school playground with a sound like seagulls.
'They are soft,' she said with only a touch of disgust. 'They
have hardly seen a German yet. If the Boche came over here
with some anti-aircraft guns, which is what I suppose they will
do in time, they will soon realize what it means to be conquered.'
'You can't make them fight if they don't know what they're
fighting,' agreed Ormerod. 'I'm still not convinced that they will not hand us over to the first Jerry that appears.'
She had lit a cigarette. She drew on it fiercely, her mouth
like a beak. 'They will not do that. I have already made an arrangement with Marcel, the old man, in the house last night.'
'An arrangement? What?'
'I have told him I will shoot him and his son if the Germans
are told,' she said coolly. 'And any other person from this
island who is there while I still have my gun. I think he under
stands me.'
'Jesus wept,' murmured Ormerod. 'And well he might. You
would too, wouldn't you?'
'If it meant they had betrayed us then I would,' she said. 'I have plenty of bullets for traitors.'
Ormerod leaned back on the placid grass. He closed his eyes
and let the increasing warmth of the day across his face. 'God
this feels like having a day off and lying in our local park,' he said. 'If it wasn't for the gulls screeching, and the smell of the
salt, and you talking about shooting people.'
'Are you happy in your marriage?' she asked in her sudden
way.
He was surprised by the inquiry but he did not open his eyes. I
don't know yet. I've only been married a year. I expect I'll find out in time,' he mumbled.
Her voice seemed quite distant. 'Yes, I suppose you are right
about that,' she said. She paused for more than a minute. 'When I am in Normandy I will go for a short visit to my village,' she continued. 'To see my children.'
For some reason he was amazed. He released one eye, then the other, and then got up onto his elbows. 'You've got kids?' he said. 'Somehow that never occurred to me. You, married.'
'I am not certain I am married,' she corrected. 'My husband
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was taken away by the Nazis, so I have been told, so I expect he is now dead. They do not keep people as guests, you know.'
He looked at her sympathetically. Her expression had not changed. 'I see,' he said. 'That's one of your reasons, is it?'
'One of them,' she nodded. She had turned her head and was now looking towards the jumping children in the school yard. 'I have two like that. Clovis and Suzanne.'
'Boy and a girl, eh?' Ormerod said conventionally. 'Nice. Haven't thought much about kids myself. Not yet. Not with the war and everything.'
'What do you think about?' she asked. 'In your life?'
'Crime,' he said decisively. 'Nabbing people who've done it. It's my interest in life, I suppose. Sometimes it gets to be an obsession with me. That's why I want to get our chummy Smales.'
'Ah, Monsieur Smales,' she half smiled. 'Well he will not be the only criminal you will find over the water. You will have the chance to be - how do you say? - nabbing more than one man.'
'We
are
going to Bagnoles, aren't we?' he said, leaning towards her. 'For sure I mean. That's where he was last heard of. In hospital.'
Her eyebrows went up a little mockingly. 'You would arrest a wounded man?' she asked.
'Even if I have to carry the bastard over my shoulder,' he grunted. I
really
want to get my hands on him.'
'This girl he murdered, did you love her?' she asked. He looked at her again in astonishment.
'You wouldn't be French would you?' he protested grumpily. 'It's not all romance and tragedy you know. Of course I didn't love her. God, she was only eighteen. I know her parents, but it was nothing personal. It's just a young life chucked away because some man got drunk and couldn't control his randiness.'
'You make it sound as if it is personal,' she shrugged. 'Perhaps you fell in love with her after she was dead.'
In the evening the Germans arrived. There were twenty villagers
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in the room of the inn, drinking cider in the smoke, with Ormerod sitting among them and Marie-Thérèse standing behind the bar handing the tankards of drink to the two young girls to place on the tables. At nine o'clock there was a brisk knock on the door and it seemed that twenty cooperative voices called
'Entrez!'
Marcel, the old man, suddenly bent and picked the ragged mongrel of the bar up and threw it in the surprised Ormerod's lap. Ormerod glanced at Marie-Thérèse and saw her dart a look at the old man. His eyes were calm. Ormerod felt his pistol under his armpit like a small crutch. The dog settled in his lap. The door opened and a decent-faced German sergeant came in, followed by four apprehensive soldiers. They held their rifles as though they would drop them and run at the first indication of trouble. It was the second time that Ormerod had seen German soldiers and once again he thought that soldiers were the same everywhere. Afraid.
They clumbered into the room and shut the door politely behind them. The sergeant saw the old man Marcel, and recognized him. He sat down beside him. The fisherman nodded towards Marie-Thérèse and, tight-lipped, she poured five glasses of cider and gave them to the girls to give to the soldiers.
In difficult French the sergeant asked the old man if they had seen two of their comrades who had gone fishing and not returned. With relief Ormerod saw that the fisherman was shaking his head before the question was finished. 'Not today at all,' Marcel said. 'We heard from the lighthouse that they were missing. Two days ago they were in their boat close inshore to the island. They came to land for some bread and fish and cider. But they went over to the east somewhere.'