'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.
53
There was another twenty minutes of it. At the end they said they couldn't help him any further. He was on his own. He thanked them without enthusiasm. 'Get a good night's sleep,' advised Charles. 'No sloping off down the pub.' They laughed again heartily but when Ormerod did not join in they lapsed into hurt silence. 'The car will be along in a minute,' said Charles huffily. They shook hands stiffly with him and he went out.
He knocked on the door of the old man from the Public Records Office. 'I'd like to see the Magna Carta,' he said. 'If it's convenient.'
'If I'm going to die,' he thought, 'I might as well see what I'm dying for.'
It rained the next day, the variety of rain peculiar to dockyard towns like Portsmouth, a lean sea-hung drizzle across the grim wartime streets and the grey and crowded naval tenements in the port. Seagulls croaked in the wet. Ormerod was taken to a naval barracks and there, as if it were part of a well-oiled and minutely rehearsed operation, he was once again given lunch in a deserted room. He ate moodily, although he had been eating alone for weeks, reflecting that this was how he had felt when he was in quarantine with chicken pox as a boy. Every now and then someone came and stared through the window at him, patently knowing that he was something of a curiosity, and then went away. He found himself becoming bad-tempered at this, unusually so, but he put it down to the proximity of the dangerous mission. As he was eating his Royal Navy rhubarb and custard he poked his tongue out at two pale young officers who had come to look at him. They retreated abruptly.
A short, spongy sailor who had served the meal came in with a mug of tea and a smile. He was the naval counterpart of the grubby private at Ash Vale. 'Off to France then?' he said, conversationally. Ormerod choked over the last spoonful of rhubarb. 'How did you know?' he demanded. 'How the hell..?'
'Don't get shirty,' said the sailor. 'Every bugger knows. But we promise we won't tell the Germans. God's honour.'
I should bloody well hope not,' said Ormerod sourly, taking
54
the tea. 'I've got a short enough life expectancy as it is. Everybody knows do they? Anybody thought to ring the local Nazi spy and tell him?'
The sailor hunched his shoulders. 'It's the submarine, see,' he explained, leaning confidingly. 'She's sailing tonight and she'll be back tomorrow. That much we know, see, because there's a football match and the crew have been promised faithfully they'll be back for that. Well, where can you go in less than twenty-four hours? Not far. So the guess is right?'
'I'm not saying,' grunted Ormerod bitterly. I don't care. I'm only relieved they're getting back for their precious bloody football match, that's all. I wouldn't have liked them to be late for the kick-off.'
The sailor laughed jovially. 'Don't you worry your head about that, mate,' he promised. "They'll be back all right. Even if it means dumping you anywhere convenient and making a dash for it. Oh, they'll be back.' He regarded the miserable face of Ormerod below him. 'And you'll get back all right too,' he said in a poor attempt at reassurance. 'Don't you fret. How did you get into this anyway?'
Ignoring the question Ormerod said: 'Can you get seasick in a submarine?'
'Ever so,' nodded the sailor. 'Oh blimey, sick! They reckon it can be worse under the hoggin than on top of the hoggin. I wouldn't know because I've never been on it or under it. I'm having my war right here.'
'Convenient,' nodded Ormerod. 'Nice for you. I was hoping that the submarine, anyway, would be on the steady side.'
'They roll,' the sailor said, demonstrating by moving the empty tea mug from side to side. 'Like my mum's mangle, I'm told. Never mind. It can't be for long, can it?'
A naval lieutenant put his head around the door and whistled shrilly. I say old boy,' he called to Ormerod. 'You're the special chap, aren't you?'
'So I'm told,' said Ormerod.
'Right-ho. Just toddle across to the other side of the parade ground will you. Go through the door marked "No Admittance", down the corridor and into the last room on the left. Final briefing I think.'
55
'Christ, not another final briefing,' said Ormerod getting up heavily. 'Not another.'
'I know,' nodded the young officer sympathetically. 'They will keep having them, won't they? We usually find they give you eight final briefings then cancel the whole show anyway. Probably forget what it was all about in the first place. Anyway, pop over there will you?'
Ormerod sighed and walked out of the building. The September rain was flying enthusiastically across Portsmouth harbour driven by a growling wind. In the dock beyond the bleak barracks and the parade ground a submarine wallowed in the oily water. Ormerod closed his eyes and began to walk.
He had gone twenty paces across the square towards a formation of marching marines when the sergeant drilling them turned and spotted him. The man shuddered, swung as if he were on some mechanically operated spring, and stumped towards Ormerod. 'You!' he bawled. 'You!'
Ormerod stopped and looked up through the rain to his front. The marine sergeant was bristling, twenty-five yards away. 'You!' he bellowed again.
Ormerod had now had enough. 'Me?' he bawled back. 'Me?'
The marine NCO looked astounded. Disbelief burst on his face. He drew himself up on his toes like an ignited rocket just before taking off. 'You,' he howled hysterically.
'Me?' Ormerod shouted back. 'Me?'
'Yes - you! Come here! And quick!'
Ormerod stood his ground. The rain was licking his forehead. His very soul felt damp. 'No,' he challenged. 'You come here.'
The marine sergeant could not credit it. He had gone purple in the dark afternoon. Then an internal brake seemed to be suddenly released and he strutted at Ormerod like a puff-chested bird. As the two men seemed about to collide the drill sergeant came to a stamping stop two feet away. He was the same height as Ormerod and he glared vividly into the policeman's tired eyes.
'You are walking across our parade ground!' snarled the NCO. 'You realize that? On the parade ground!'
'Fuck off,' suggested Ormerod quietly. He thought: God I hope they do put me in a cell, then I won't have to go. 'Go on,
56
fuck off,' he repeated walking past the NCO. He continued his
slow amble across the square until he came to the door marked
'No Admittance' and he went in.
He could hear the expected commotion on the barrack square
behind him but nothing worried him now. He felt as if his body had entered a tight capsule, that his existence, and the things he did, had no bearing on the real and normal world,
even if there were any longer such a thing. He entered into the
last room along the corridor, knocked and went in without
waiting for an answer. He did not feel in the mood for waiting
for answers.