'Nice time of the year this,' ventured Ormerod to the driver.
'Lovely,' said the man, a Cockney. 'Does a treat, don't it sir.' He nodded out of the window. 'Just like miles of wallpaper.'
'What's this place Ashridge, anyway?' asked Ormerod, now he knew the man was allowed to talk.
'Ashridge Park, sir?' said the driver. They were going through Windsor with the Thames blue with the deep reflection of the sky. Ormerod gave a nod of acknowledgement towards the castle. 'Well, sir, they've got the Public Records Office at Ashridge. Brought it from London, tons and tons of books and papers, like a blinking salvage drive. They had to get it out in case it got bombed. Make a very nasty fire all them papers.'
Ormerod wondered why his briefing was being held at the
Public Records Office, but did not press the matter. They arrived after just over an hour's drive, turning into parkland so full of bright leaves it hurt the eyes. In the centre of the
park was a fine, grave house, and adjacent to the house, under covering trees, rows of prefabricated, asbestos buildings, an
affront to the surroundings. The car stopped at one of these and an ATS girl came out and showed Ormerod into a stark waiting room. He sat down, the melancholy of the place sett
ling quickly on him. After a while the oldest man he had ever
seen, wearing the oldest clothes he had ever seen, striped
47
trousers and black jacket almost grey with age and dust, came
in and began intently to sharpen a white quill with a miniature penknife. He looked up at Ormerod and smiled beatifically.
'Lovely, isn't it?' he said, nodding at the autumn extravagance outside the imprisoning window. 'The sun on all the trees. Part of nature's war effort, I suppose. She's trying to make up for some of the discomforts.'
'She's probably doing it for the Germans as well,' pointed out Ormerod. The old man considered both Ormerod's point
and that of the quill; he nodded philosophically. 'Very true, I imagine,' he agreed. He dropped his voice conspiratorially. 'I
don't believe this rubbish about God only being on our side, you know. It's propaganda, sheer government propaganda.'
He was trimming his quill with a great art. Ormerod watched
him carefully for he had never seen anyone who used a quill before. A serene smile touched the man's face at his interest.
'Great shortage, of course,' he said, holding up the feather. 'The war again. Although why we can't get goose feathers is beyond me. Surely the geese still grow them.'
Ormerod could not believe that the ancient man was any
thing to do with his own presence there. 'Public Records Office
are you?' he asked.
'Indeed, indeed,' nodded the man benignly. 'All transported
from London. Quite a miracle, I suppose, although our work
ing conditions are hardly in keeping, as you might judge.' He looked around caustically at the almost derelict waiting room.
'You'd think a jam-jar of flowers would not be too much to ask for wouldn't you?' he said. 'And perhaps a few decent pictures on the walls.'
Ormerod nodded. 'Certainly make it look less ... formal,' he said. The man had finished sharpening his quill but he was not in a hurry to depart. "We have the entire history of our
great country in this building, you know,' he said. 'Even Magna
Carta. We
had
to bring that of course. It's quite priceless. And
if the Germans do come and conquer us it will be reassuring to
be able to read it and know what we fought for, even if we
lost.' He paused as if wondering whether to impart some secret information. I myself,' he said eventually, 'am working on
documents appertaining to the battles of 1899 in South Africa.'
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'You're a couple of wars behind then,' said Ormerod.
'For the rest of the world, yes,' acknowledged the man. 'But for us, no. Here we never like to hurry these things.' He turned to go but paused at the door. 'If you would like to see Magna Carta this afternoon, I can arrange it,' he offered. 'It's something everybody should see.'
I was touched at the real generosity. 'Thank you,' he said. 'If I've got time, I will.'
The man nodded and continued nodding as if he were unable to stop. 'I'm the first room along the corridor,' he said before leaving the room. 'Just knock quietly. I'll hear you. We don't make a lot of din here.'
Bemused, Ormerod watched him shuffle and nod away. He felt a kind of envy. How peaceful it must be sorting out the Boer War. He stood up and looked through the grubby window at the extravagant trees. The driver was right. It was just like wallpaper. Someone came into the room behind him and he turned unhurriedly. It was the ATS girl. He could see at once that she knew why he was there because she was regarding him with a sympathetic sort of hero-worship. No one had ever looked at him like that before. 'Penny for your thoughts,' she said after she had smiled.
'Hardly worth that much,' he smiled back. I was just thinking that somebody is going to have a job clearing up all the leaves around here.'
'You're right,' she said. 'But it's a quiet job isn't it? You wouldn't know there was a war on. Not here.' She paused, then said, almost with embarrassment: 'They're waiting for you now. Will you follow me?'
He went after her, watching her tight, khaki-clad backside moving two yards ahead. A brief thought of his wife made him momentarily homesick. He would have to forget that. He had telephoned her several times from Ash Vale but she was always formal to the point of stiffness on the telephone. How was the police course going? Would he be getting extra allowance for being away? Could he fix the kettle when he got home because it had gone wrong again, please? It was hardly a romantic marriage.
The girl showed him into yet another grubby chamber where
49
two men in neat suits, like bank clerks, stood staring at a wide map of Normandy on the wall. As he came in one brushed his hand across the map. 'Couldn't tell whether that was a small town or a house fly,' he smiled weakly at his colleague. They seemed surprised to see Ormerod standing behind them and both came forward with bogus diffidence to shake his hand.
'Jolly glad to meet you,' said the first clerky man. He wore a grey suit with some sort of significantly striped tie and had the kind of pale wispy hair that is almost as good as being bald. The other man was wearing a pin-striped suit with another kind of significantly striped tie and his dark hair had been sleeked down as if it had been painted to his head. 'Sit down, please,' said the second man. 'Might as well get some rest while you can, eh?'
Ormerod was getting familiar with the type. He sat down heavily. The first man took some kind of form and showed it to the second. 'AF G 146,' he intoned. 'That's right, isn't it Charles?'
'Think so, Gerry. Probably do anyway.'
Even in that moment they seemed to have forgotten Ormerod was sitting there, and that he was the subject of the interview and a great deal of what was to come after it. They looked up and smiled, almost surprised smiles as thought they had just noticed him. 'Interesting name, Ormerod,' said the grey-suited Gerry. 'O-R-M-E-R-O-D,' he spelt it out and then recited, 'Ormer - a mollusc, tough shell-fish adhering to rocks, makes good eating. Rod - as in the Rod of Aaron or rod, pole or perch, or a fishing rod.'
'Rod, pole or perch,' said the striped Charles reflectively. 'Fishing rod ... There's a good
Times
crossword clue there somewhere.'
'Damned difficult to compile, crosswords,' said Gerry. Once more they seemed to have completely forgotten Ormerod. He sat looking spiritually shattered while they gossiped like fifth formers at their desks. 'Much easier to solve them.'
They looked up together as if their heads were interlocked and saw Ormerod's distraught expression. 'Don't fret about us,' said Charles jovially. 'Our department is full of odd-bods like us. Some of them worse, hey Gerry?'
50
'Damned sight worse,' agreed Gerry. 'Infinitely. Still we need to be ... different.' He pulled his shoulders together and leaned his elbows on the desk as if as a sign he was getting down to business. 'I'm navy,' he said. 'Intelligence of course. Charles here is one of those brown jobs.'
'Brown jobs?' asked Ormerod. He was wondering who was madder, them or him for allowing them to send him on a perilous mission.
'Yes, brown jobs,' confirmed Gerry. 'You know, army.'
"We've got to fill you in with a few last details before we see you off,' said Charles. 'One thing we don't want you to do is to
worry.'
'Worry? Oh, I won't worry,' muttered Ormerod still staring at them unbelievingly. 'I've got nothing to worry about have I? It's all being done for me.'
Charles and Gerry looked at each other as if unsure how to take this. They decided he was serious. 'We do our best,' said Charles smugly. 'It's all we can do. Now - here we have some rather jolly aerial photographs of Chausey Island which we might as well confess neither of us had ever heard of until this little bit of fun.' He took half a dozen misty prints out of a folder. 'Early morning stuff,' he said, 'so they have a bit of fog here and there, but you can get a general idea of the place. Looks very cosy, I must say. Few fishermen's cottages, lighthouse, church, all mod cons. No sign of the Boche, although these were taken a couple of weeks ago. He may have moved in a Panzer division by now.'
'Everyone says that,' nodded Ormerod.
'These jokes go around,' shrugged Gerry, taking up the thread. 'Point is we can't get the submarine too close to the island itself. See here ...' He drew his finger along a narrow neck of water. 'That's called The Sund, it's the main anchorage. But any submarine sticking her nose in there would be really asking for it. So what we intend to do ...' His elegant finger swept the photograph, '... is to drop you off here. It looks from the picture as if you'll be in the middle of the hoggin, as the chaps say on the lower deck. That's the sea ...' He glanced at Ormerod to make sure he understood. Ormerod nodded.
51
'Yes, the hoggin,' continued Charles. 'But in fact it's an illusion. On a low tide - and the autumn tides are really amazing - a drop of forty feet and more so they say, anyway on the low tide all sorts of jolly little islands appear. Most of them are not much more than rocks. But if we get you ashore on one of these at the right time, you'll more or less be able to walk across to the channel of the main island. It's something over a mile but you'll be able to do it. Bit hard on the feet I expect.' He flicked up a few pages of his notes as though checking the fact.
'Well, there'll be plenty of rock pools,' chimed in Gerry cheerfully. 'Treat them to a paddle. Nothing like a drop of brine for feet.'
'Frankly,' said Charles, glaring at Ormerod with sudden drama, 'we can't guarantee what's going to happen when you get ashore. We take it that the fishermen will help. After all they're bloody French and they're still more or less on our side. You may run into all sorts of trouble or it may be a piece of cake. Simply cannot tell. We've had no time to find out either. We've hardly had time to get ourselves sorted out since Dunkirk. You might not guess it, Ormerod, but we're pretty new to this ourselves. We haven't even got a proper decent office yet, have we Gerry?'
'No fear,' confirmed Gerry. 'That's why we have to use this funny little place.'
'I hope you get somewhere decent soon,' said Ormerod heavily. 'One thing I haven't asked. How do we get from the submarine to the shore?'
'Collapsible boat,' said Charles firmly as if he had been waiting for the question. 'No trouble at all. Sub half surfaces, over the side, into the canvas boat. Any more for the skylark! Well, almost. Row ashore. If something goes wrong you may have to swim.'
'I
can't
swim, said Ormerod stonily.
'Oh God,' said Gerry, concern wrapped around his face. 'They always overlook something. Do you remember that chap who went to Norway, Charles, suffered from snow-blindness.'
'Black chaps often do,' said Charles.
52
'Black?' said Ormerod with slowly realized horror. 'You sent a black man to Norway?'
'Bad planning,' agreed Gerry. 'Bloody bad. But, as I said, we've hardly got ourselves organized properly yet.'
'Anyway,' said Charles firmly, wanting to get away from that aspect, 'there's no time to teach you to swim now. Not unless you're a damn quick learner. You'll be on your way in twenty-four hours.'
Ormerod felt a stone turn in his stomach. 'That soon?' he said.
'That soon,' confirmed Gerry. 'Time and tide and all that nonsense, you know.'
'What about the other agent, the lady?' asked Ormerod. 'I thought I was going to meet her today.'
'Stood you up, I shouldn't wonder,' laughed Charles.
'She'll be with you later, don't fret,' said Gerry. 'She'll join you at Portsmouth. That's where you get the sub. I gather she's really something. Wouldn't mind toddling off with her myself.'
They sat looking at him in a special sort of silence after that for what seemed like several cold minutes. Then Charles said apologetically, I wish we could tell you more about what will happen, Ormerod. But to tell you the blessed truth we don't know. Somehow you've got to get from Chausey Island to the mainland. We must hope the natives are friendly.' He got up and went to the map and scribbled his finger across it. 'Obviously they'll have to land you somewhere quiet on the mainland. But there are lots of small beaches and such like and the Germans can't be properly organized in Normandy. I mean, they've hardly had time to move in. There
must
be lots of loopholes. In a way, I suppose, it's just as well you're the early bird, one of the first back. Catch them before they've got their flies done up, as it were.' He saw something on the map. 'See, here's an appropriate beach, and ha! Look at this, Gerry, what a name! St Jean le Thomas! St John Thomas, dammit!'
Gerry bounced up and laughed youthfully. Ormerod accepted their invitation to see the place was genuine, that it was no joke. He smiled woodenly. Another half an hour of this, he thought, and I'll kill these two bastards before I've ever laid a finger on the Germans.