Baffled, Ormerod stared from his chair. The Brigadier saw his expression and looked sorry. 'Look Ormerod,' he said, rushing to the point. 'The real reason I invited you here today was to ask you if you'd like to take a trip off to Bagnoles de l'Orne to find your murderer.'
Now Ormerod was transfixed. He was certain the man had
gone mad. 'Very nice idea, sir,' he said nervously. 'But ... the
Germans. What about them?'
'We won't tell them,' smiled the Brigadier triumphantly. He
saw the policeman's look of overwhelming consternation and
held up a reassuring hand. 'No, no, I've not gone off my rocker.
It's a serious plan. You would be doing something you have
quite urgently wanted to do and also rendering a service to this
country and to France - in fact to the world.'
Ormerod thought of the French officer going out. He remembered his sideways glance. Realization arrived coldly in his
stomach. 'You want me to ... er go to France?' he said incredulously. 'Me?'
34
'Not alone,' said Clark. 'You'd be accompanied by a trained operator.'
'But
me!
I'm a London copper sir. Don't you have experienced agents and that sort of thing?'
'Trained, yes. A few. Experienced, no. There's not been much scope for experience has there? Europe's not been occupied up until now. The basic idea is that you are landed in France, Normandy or Brittany, and that you make your way to Paris by a prescribed route, contacting resistance groups, or potential groups,
if any,
and at the same time tracking down this man you so desperately want to apprehend.' He attempted an encouraging smile as though it were all simple. 'Your function would be almost one of bodyguard because the agent going with you is a young woman, a former schoolteacher from Normandy, who is a trained operator but needs some er ... well muscle ... she needs a man to go with her, although she won't admit that. We're trying to cobble together some sort of organization to operate in Europe, but frankly in the state we are in at the moment we cannot spare another trained man to go with her. It only needs one experienced person. You simply go to ... well, to be
with
her.'
I see,' said Ormerod slowly. The wonder of it was still stunning him. 'You don't want to risk anyone
good.
But it's all right if it's me.'
'You're what they call "expendable",' Clarke nodded with sad honesty. 'This idea has been buzzing around in the trade for some time, ever since Dunkirk, but nobody wanted to sacrifice ... well, spare, two agents. And the girl is absolutely ideal. She comes from Normandy and she's fanatically French. She hates the Hun. Come to think of it she's not all that keen on us either. But she's a woman for all that. She needs a travelling companion.' He tried to beam encouragingly. 'And you wanted to go to France. Now's your chance.'
Clark took a file from the drawer of his desk. 'You're a good pistol shot, I see,' he said, looking at a sheet of paper from the file. 'You impressed the small arms instructor at Woolwich when you did your army training. And physically you seem to be in excellent condition. You have a policeman's mind, train-
35
ing and outlook. And your record with the force is quite outstanding. All plusses, Ormerod, all plusses. How's your French?'
Ormerod was now regarding him with new horror. The whole business seemed to be cut and dried, running out of control. 'French? Well... not very good.
Merci, bonjour,
'allo Mademoiselle. That's about the extent of it.'
The Brigadier smiled encouragingly. 'Well that's all right. After all the French are on
our
side. They'll be the only ones who'll notice. It's the Germans v/e must worry about and most
of them won't speak French. Not the ordinary private soldier
anyway. And if you ever get to officer level then the game's up
with you anyway, so it won't matter either way. You don't speak German, I suppose?'
As though he was walking through a dream Ormerod said: I played
football for the Metropolitan Police against the Berlin
Police before the war and we had a return match in Germany.
I tried to learn a bit of German for that. But it's mostly football
like "goal" and "off-side" and "foul" ...'
'It might just come in useful, said Clark with frankly bogus
optimism. 'Anyway we've settled that you're going, Ormerod.' It was not even a half question.
'Have we?' mumbled Ormerod. 'Well I suppose that's it then,
isn't it. Right now I can't say I'm looking forward to it. I just wanted to catch a bloke that's done a crime, not take on the Master Race.'
Clark regarded him with professional seriousness. I want
to tell you that you will be doing your country a great service.
Churchill himself is right behind this, you'll be glad to hear.'
'Oh I am,' said Ormerod flatly. 'Ever so glad.'
'He has said that he wants to "set Europe alight". You could
be the first match.'
Ormerod sighed woefully. 'Well it looks as though I'm going,'
he said.'When is it?'
'Can't tell you. Sorry, it's a secret. Anyway we don't know.
But within a few weeks. You'll have a concentrated training
course, small arms, explosives, all the usual stuff, and of course
we'll have you taken off police duties right away.'
36
'Right,' nodded Ormerod. 'I'm glad I don't have to do it in my spare time. What can I tell my wife?'
'Ah yes, your wife. Well I'm afraid you can't tell her the truth. Now what can we do? Can you go on some sort of police training course? We could arrange for everybody to be told that.'
'Yes, I could go on a police course,' said Ormerod dully. 'That should be all right.'
'You haven't any children have you?' said Clark looking at the file. 'It says "no" here.'
'It's right,' answered Ormerod. 'I've only been married a year. No time yet.'
'And you are ... er thirty-five.'
'Yes.'
Clark took a celluloid card from the desk and ran his finger
down a column of figures. 'If anything happens to you, your wife will get quite a decent pension.' He looked up brightly.
'Oh good. That's a relief anyway,' said Ormerod. 'I'm really
pleased about that.'
'Right,' said Clark holding out his hand. 'You're a great chap Ormerod. This war will be won by men like you. Within days you will receive further orders. You'll have to go down to Ash
Vale in Hampshire for your training and detailed briefing. After that it could happen any time.'
Shaking the outstretched military hand, Ormerod said: 'I won't have to parachute, will I sir? I don't fancy parachuting.'
'Oh no. It will be a sea landing, I imagine.'
'I get seasick,' said Ormerod. 'But I'd rather the sea than the
sky. The sky always seems so empty.'
'Yes it does a bit,' said the Brigadier as though it had never
occurred to him before. He looked out of the window and examined the sky. 'Jolly empty,' he agreed. 'A long drop.'
He led Ormerod to the door. The busty girl had again knocked the paper clips on the floor and had just finished
gathering them. I must get that magnet,' she smiled at Ormerod.
'It was a very good idea.'
'I'm full of them,' said Ormerod flatly.
'Did you like the tea?'
37
'Delicious,' said Ormerod. 'Best thing that's happened to me
all day.'
The girl went into the inner office to collect the cups. Clark
leaned confidingly towards Ormerod's ear. 'The junket hasn't
got a classified codename yet,' he said. 'Purely privately, I'm
calling it Ormerod's Landing.'
'Oh, you've named it after
me,'
said Ormerod, trying to sound
pleased.
'But it's only for the present. It will get a proper code later and you will have a codename. It won't do to use your real name. If you die on this sort of jaunt, it's better that you die anonymously.'
three
After a week in the special camp at Ash Vale, near Aldershot,
Ormerod could still scarcely credit what was happening to him.
At night he would lie staring at the ceiling of the small room
which had been allocated to him at the remote end of the empty army hut, wondering, and not the first man to do so, whatever was to become of him in the following weeks. For him, with his personal sense of isolation from the war, it was an accentuated doubt. It was as if he was being thrown into a
serious conflict that was nothing whatever to do with him. Even
the thought that he was to be given the chance to seek out the shameful Albert Smales had lost a proportion of its previous attraction. He looked at the map of France and realized how
many miles it was overland from the Normandy coast to Paris.
Somehow he had to get
back
as well.
With Smales.
He groaned
in the darkness, slept fitfully, and woke to bare daylight with the English birds singing beyond the cold-eyed window.
A cheerfully grubby private in an ill-defined regiment brought
him a mug of tea every morning, whether from friendship or
duty Ormerod never discovered. He drank half the tea and used
3?
the rest as shaving water, as advised by the soldier, because
there was no hot water in the taps of the elderly latrines of his
empty billet. At the end of the week he had a brown chin from
the tannin.
'Everything all right then?' the private would say ritually every morning. 'Treating you okay, are they?'
'Great,' nodded Ormerod grimly. 'Wonderful.'
'What will you be doing today then?'
'Deserting.'
'Can't do that, mate. They'll only catch you. I kept hopping off and I'm more or less on permanent jankers. The only chance I've got of getting out of this bloody hole is if the Germans come and get me.'
'Just like me,' agreed Ormerod. 'It's a rotten choice.'
'Cheer up. It'll be all over when we're dead.'
'Thanks. You make it seem all worth while. Now sod off.'
Wearing an anonymous army battledress he spent his days
in the study of maps and photographs and films of Normandy
from the Manche
département
on the coast to the Perche country inland, half the way to Paris. He sat solitary, in a
lecture hut like a dull and lonely child kept after school, while
two instructors took it in turn to teach him the geography, topography, history, industry and humanity of the region.
He was taken to a small arms range and further instructed in the use and care of a variety of pistols and automatic weapons and, for some reason he could not fathom, except that it was part of the set syllabus, how to charge fiercely with
a bayonet. Despite his solid policeman's outlook, Ormerod was
a sensitive man and, as many sensitive men have discovered, the shouting charge with a bayonet to stab a sack supposed to
be an enemy was the most sickening experience. 'Do I
have
to
shout?' he pleaded with the instructor, a fat, jolly fellow from
Cornwall. I mean I thought the whole operation was supposed
to be done on the quiet. It's
secret.
I can't see I'm going to
have to
shout
under any circumstances. And where do I get the
rifle and bayonet in the first place? I can't march through Occupied Europe with a rifle and bayonet now can I?'
I don' know anythin' about your business, my old darlin','
said the instructor with a wide western smile. 'All I know is that
39
the use of the bayonet is in the course, so that's why we be a-doin' it, see? Now get the fuckin' thing stuck in that sack.'
He was better with more stationary training, especially marksmanship. He had always enjoyed the special skill that went with drawing a line on a distant target, steadying the hand, the eye, the gut, the breath, and drawing the trigger. His marks were high. 'Keep it like that,' advised the pistol instructor grudgingly. 'It's the difference between life and death.' He paused and added: 'Yours.'
One afternoon a week was devoted to camouflage and con
cealment, a subject, Ormerod suspected, which again had to be
included simply because it was in the manual, and the army stuck by the manual. He was taken to a path beside a Hamp
shire field, scarred and muddy with the tracks of training tanks.
It was as void and open as any field he had ever seen and after a lecture by two young officer instructors he was told to go anywhere within two hundred yards and lie low. They would then spot him and tell him where he had gone wrong.
They had driven to the field in an army fifteen hundredweight
platoon truck, which was standing a few yards away on the track, and while the instructors turned their backs and, in a
curiously juvenile way, hid their eyes in their hands and coun
ted to a hundred, Ormerod quietly climbed into the back of
the truck and lay there. The counting completed, the instructors
turned and, searching with their binoculars, went over every yard of the landscape of mud and coarse grass. They failed to
find him. Eventually one said: 'That's bloody well impossible,
Justin. No one could lie
that
flat. I think he may have buggered
off.'
'Let's see, Archie,' said Justin. He cupped his hands to his mouth. 'Righty-ho you can come out now!'
Grinning, Ormerod rose from the truck only two yards in
front of them. They stared at him in disbelief as if he were a
spoilsport. 'Bang,' he said quietly. 'Bang.'