He’d been hit all right. There was a neat hole in the back of his calf and a much uglier exit wound at the front, just beside the shin-bone. In fact, he could see the gleaming bone itself,
looking like a stamen in the heart of a flower that blossomed around it, blood-red petals symmetrically curling away.
He was surprised to see that the bleeding wasn’t all that heavy, and there was almost none at all from the entry wound. Grimly, he unwound his silk flying scarf – a present from
Diana, she’d given it to him just before Dunkirk – and wrapped it tightly around the whole mess. Then he stood up again.
The plane’s exploding machine-gun bullets had worked to a crescendo; it sounded like the finale to a fireworks display. One round sang past so close that he felt a ripple of air brush his
cheek.
You’ll have your fucking head taken off in a minute, mate, never mind a hole in your leg. Move it!
He limped as fast as his leg and back would allow to a low stone wall at the edge of the meadow and tumbled over it onto the other side, screaming again as his back went into violent spasms.
Wisps of smoke were still rising from his head and jacket. He just wanted to lie there but was forced up and over on to all fours as nausea overwhelmed him, and he vomited, copiously.
So this was what it was like to be shot down.
Diana sat in silence for a while. There was nothing she could think of to say that wouldn’t sound trite, or silly. Eventually she passed a hand over her eyes and down the
side of her face.
‘I don’t know what to say, James – except that it’s a miracle that you’re alive. I mean . . . But there’s something I don’t understand. The pilots who
saw you shot down were certain there wasn’t a parachute. They both said so in their statements. I’ve read them.’
He shrugged. ‘I can’t help that. If they saw my plane go down they should have seen my parachute open too.’
Diana frowned. ‘Wait a minute. They didn’t actually see your plane crash, James. They said it went down on the far side of some trees. They saw it disappear behind them and then the
flash and smoke of the explosion.’
James nodded as he lit a cigarette. ‘That would explain it. I told you, my parachute snagged on one of those trees. I don’t even think it opened properly. If the boys were on the
other side of the trees, they couldn’t have seen any of that.’ He grinned at her. ‘Lucky for me, eh?’
‘Yes! If you’d been only a few feet lower when you—’
He laughed. ‘No, I don’t mean that. I mean that they never saw the parachute, so everyone assumed I was dead. I always reckoned they’d think that anyway when I didn’t
show up anywhere, but it’s nice to know for certain.’
She stared at him. ‘Why is that so important, James?’
He stared back at her. ‘I should have thought that was obvious. You can’t hang a dead man for desertion.’
He came round in the dirt under the drystone wall. He could hear the crackle of his Spitfire still burning, but the popping of exploding ammunition had stopped now.
James struggled to his feet and stifled another shout of agony. The pain in his back was exquisite. What the hell had he done to it? He knew it couldn’t be broken; he could walk. Strangely
enough, his injured leg was almost pain-free, just the occasional dull ache.
He needed to clear out before a German patrol came snooping around. For the second time that afternoon, he cast around for his bearings. Across the fields, about a mile to the south, he could
see the roofs of a village.
It was going to be agony, but he would have to walk, there was no choice. With any luck there would be a friendly welcome, perhaps even a doctor to clean and stitch his leg and give him
painkillers for his back. And his tongue, too; it was grossly swollen where he had bitten it, and it hurt like the devil. His mouth and chin were covered in drying blood; he could feel it plastered
slickly all over his lower face. Vomit too. He must look an absolute fright.
Slowly, his bloodied face set in a rictus of pain, James Blackwell hobbled over to a farm-track on the other side of the field. It appeared to lead towards the village; he would probably soon
pick up a proper road.
The skeletal remains of his downed plane burned quietly behind him.
He didn’t look back.
He was finished with all of that.
‘So that’s when you decided to run away.’ Diana sounded harsher and more judgemental than she intended to. She flushed.
James shrugged. ‘You can call it what you like. Running away, deserting, going AWOL – it’s all the same to me, Diana.’
He leaned across the table, his face suddenly taut, eyes narrowed. ‘Look. I’d just had enough,’ he said quickly. ‘Enough. I’d nearly been killed, twice in two
weeks. I just couldn’t face the thought of going through any of that again.’
‘But why desert? Why not just give yourself up to the Germans and spend the war in a prison camp? It would have been pretty ghastly, but you would have been safe.’
He sighed. ‘Give me a minute, would you? Talking about this makes me really thirsty.’ He snapped his fingers and a waiter appeared at the table at once. Diana thought the man looked
extremely nervous.
‘Water,’ ordered James.
The waiter hurried away and Diana stared out at the surf breaking along the beach opposite.
She turned to him. ‘Is that man frightened of you, James? Do you know him?’
He lit another cigarette. ‘Nope. Never seen him before in my life. He must be the nervous type.’ He inhaled deeply. ‘Where were we?’
‘You were telling me why you didn’t want to spend the rest of the war in a POW camp.’
‘Yes . . . Well . . . back in 1940 a lot of us thought we’d lost the war. France had fallen and it looked like England was going to be next.’
Diana frowned. ‘But surely the Germans would have sent you back home if that had happened, once the fighting was over. We’d have exchanged prisoners, wouldn’t we?’
He burst out laughing. ‘
What?
Are you serious? Once the Nazis had won, and got their own prisoners back, they would have treated us exactly the same as they did everyone else they
crushed – the Poles, the Czechs, the Russians . . . haven’t you read Hitler’s blueprint for Britain after we’d been subjugated? The newspapers got hold of it last year. It
made for grim reading, I can assure you.’
‘Of course I read it. Don’t patronise me, James.’
‘I’m sorry, Diana, I don’t mean to. But think about it. The Führer’s master-plan for a smashed Britain would have done for every British POW this side of the
Channel, me included. Hitler decreed that every able-bodied British man between the ages of seventeen and forty-five be transported to the Continent to work on German war and construction
projects.’
‘I know,’ she interrupted. ‘I told you, I read about it. And I agree, it would have been horrendous. Our POWs were to be offered a choice, weren’t they . . . Fight for
Germany in special British units, or be drafted into factories.’
He nodded. ‘Exactly. The Todt industrial complex. It was huge and it took slave labour wherever it could get it. Most conscripts didn’t survive the war – they were starved and
worked to death. Of
course
I had to stay out of German hands.’
‘Yes, but . . .’ Diana gave him a frank look. ‘All this is with hindsight, isn’t it, James? You couldn’t have known any of that back in 1940. Why didn’t you
try and contact the French Resistance? They would have helped you.’
‘Because I thought we’d lost the bloody war! You’re not listening! Anyway, helped me to do what, exactly? Get back to Britain? For Christ’s sake!’
She flinched.
‘I’m sorry, Diana.’ He took several deep breaths as he calmed himself. ‘Look. Even if I
had
managed to get back home – and it’s a bloody big if
– and Britain had somehow struggled on for a few months more before collapsing, I would’ve been given a sodding medal, paraded in front of the newspapers, and then shoved back into
another Spitfire to be shot down again, and die a hero’s death or be taken prisoner. You have to understand, Diana – the very idea of flying missions again seemed totally mad to me. It
was
mad. Out of the question. I didn’t even have to think about it.
‘Anyway,’ he went on, more gently, ‘there was no Resistance, not at that time. France was collapsing. It was utter chaos here. Army chaps wandering about like lost souls and
civilians trudging from here to there in random groups or in mass refugee columns or hiding indoors waiting for the Apocalypse . . . I know. I saw it. I was a bloody
part
of it for a
while. You’ve never seen anything like it in your life. It was like the End of Days, I’m telling you.’
There was a long silence.
‘How many of my squadron made it?’ he asked eventually.
She shook her head. ‘Not many. Quite a few were killed. One of the boys who saw you crash was shot down the very next week. Others were taken prisoner, of course. I think one pilot was
executed by the Gestapo after he tried to escape.’
He squinted at her through sunshine and cigarette smoke. ‘Hmm. You must think I’m a bloody coward.’
‘I haven’t really had time to consider the question, actually.’
The nervous waiter was back, refilling their water glasses.
Out on the Mediterranean, a distant ferry was returning from Corsica. Diana watched it for a while, struggling with her thoughts. She decided she did not have the right to judge anyone who had
gone through the kind of trauma the man opposite her had endured. Perhaps she should accept his reasons for deserting.
‘I don’t believe that you’re a coward,’ she said finally, still staring out to sea. ‘You fought very bravely, James. My brother thought you were the best and most
courageous man in the squadron. Even so, every man has his limits – I realise that. But there’s something I need you to explain, now I know you’re alive.’
‘What’s that?’
She turned to him. ‘After you were shot down . . . where did you go? What did you do? And why didn’t you come back to me when the war was over? I thought you loved me. I thought we
were happy.’
‘I did love you,’ he said quietly. ‘And we were – we were so happy, weren’t we? But how
could
I come back? As soon as the authorities caught up with me
– and they would have, Diana – I’d have been tried for desertion. They’d have hanged me. Probably still would. I made my bed in the summer of 1940 and I’ve had to lie
on it ever since.’
She looked at him bleakly. ‘You could have come to me. I would have protected you.’
‘No, you couldn’t, however much you tried. I would have been a curse on you. Can’t you see that?’
‘Not really, no.’
He threw his head back. ‘I think we need to take a break from all this.’
She shrugged. ‘If you say so.’
‘Well, I think we should eat, anyway. D’you mind? I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.’
Diana looked at her watch. It was almost one o’clock. She’d promised Stella she’d be back at the villa for lunch.
‘I have to make a phone call.’
‘Of course. Look, Diana . . .’ He reached for her hand. She let him hold it for a moment before she withdrew it. ‘I’m going to tell you everything. You deserve that, at
least.’
She crossed the marbled lobby of the Negresco. It was so much cooler in here than on the hot terrace, in spite of the sea breeze. As she made her way to the telephone booths,
Diana was intercepted by the hotel manager, bobbing and smiling and intertwining his hands against each other as though he were washing them. He could be Uriah Heep, she thought.
‘
Madame
.’ He bowed. ‘May I say what a very great pleasure it is to have
monsieur’ –
he bowed in the direction of the terrace – ‘and
his companion with us for lunch today. May I—’
‘I’m his wife.’
The little man’s eyes widened and she saw fear flicker in them.
‘But of course,
madame,
I should have known. A thousand apologies. As I was about to say, if there is anything I can do to make your visit more enjoyable . . .’ He bowed
again and scurried away.
Diana’s mind reeled. Why on earth had she said that? Douglas was her husband, not this ghost she hadn’t seen or heard from in more than ten years. What was she doing?
She realised that she’d been in a state of shock for the last two hours. Now she was away from him for a moment, it was evaporating, and the reality of the situation came crashing in on
her. He had been alive all this time. Alive. He’d been hiding in France, and if she hadn’t come here – to Nice – she’d never have known.
What was he doing here, anyway? How did he live? He looked prosperous enough, and even after spending such a short time in his company, she could see he had some kind of hold over people here.
That waiter, and the manager just now . . .
Diana felt a faint but unmistakable premonition of danger.
Abruptly, she changed her mind. It was madness to have lunch with him. She would go straight home, now, and wait for Douglas to get back from work. She would tell him everything, starting from
that first day in the flower-market when she’d heard James’s voice floating from the cab.
Overwhelmingly relieved by her decision, she walked briskly to the hotel’s side entrance where she knew there was a taxi-rank.
‘Diana!’
She turned round. He was on the far side of the lobby, looking at her with a slightly puzzled, hurt expression. Even though she’d been sitting opposite him for almost two hours, she
experienced fresh shock at the very sight of him.
Something else, too. She was suddenly and fully aware, for the first time that day, of how attractive he still was.
She felt as if she was looking at two subtly differing images, each one similar, but shifting and overlaid. The James she remembered with such clarity from that last day at the Dower House
– crisp in his freshly ironed uniform, handsome despite looking haggard after weeks of gruelling warfare – and
this
James, still lean, but robust, and completely at home in his
new environment. From the little French she had heard him speak, she suspected he was more or less fluent in the language.