Those in Peril (26 page)

He moved forward. ‘Yes, I'm here.'

‘Can you hop in all right?'

He clambered, rather than hopped, into the bow of the dinghy – clumsily because he was tired and unable to see properly in the dark, and because his bad leg was very stiff. The lieutenant said something else in English but he failed to understand. ‘I'm sorry, what did you say?'

‘I said, any more for the
Skylark
?'

‘What?'

‘It's just a joke, sir. Seaside trips round the bay, that sort of thing.'

He shook his head, bemused. Here he was being snatched from enemy-occupied France in the middle of the night and Smythson was making English jokes. ‘You were right on time.'

‘Of course, sir. We aim to do our best. How did everything go?'

‘Very well.' The holdall clinked and clanked as he settled it securely on the boards.

‘That sounds promising, sir.'

He smiled in the darkness. ‘Yes, certainly it does.'

The lieutenant pushed off from the beach and pulled away from the shore. Presently, Duval could make out the familiar shape of the
Espérance
, hove-to at a safe distance, engine ticking over, ready to go. Within minutes he was on board, a few more and he was lying on a bunk below, a few more still and he was fast asleep.

When he woke up it was daylight and they were in rough seas off the Pointe du Raz. The lieutenant kept a discreet course well clear of Brest but, even so, Duval had the unpleasant feeling that at any moment a U-boat might surface and challenge them. The feeling persisted until they had left the coast of France far behind. Soon after dawn on the following day, as they were nearing England, he went up on deck.

It was only by chance that he saw it – just a speck on the surface, a mustard-yellow blob on the grey sea, rising and falling with the swell. At first he thought it was some kind of seabird, or even a piece of flotsam, and then as he strained his eyes for a better view, he realized that it was neither of those things. The
Espérance
altered course towards the blob which turned into a pilot, kept afloat by his Mae West, leather-helmeted head lolling on his chest. He looked already dead, but as they drew alongside the head lifted and a hand was raised to give a feeble wave. The dinghy was lowered and they manoeuvred him first into it and then, with some difficulty, on board the fishing boat. He lay in a sodden heap at their feet on the deck. His face and hands had been badly burned. The flesh was blistered and raw on his face, peeling in shreds from his fingers, and his eyes were swollen into slits. Teeth chattering violently, he tried to smile. German or English?

‘Thanks awfully.' The words were faint but unmistakable.

It might have been ‘
Vielen Dank
,' Duval thought. Lieutenant Smythson fetched a clasp knife and he helped him to cut the helmet carefully away from the head and then the Mae West from the body, revealing the RAF wings beneath. The pilot whimpered and moaned as they worked. They peeled off the rest as gently as possible and wrapped him in blankets. He had fair hair – the unruly hair of a mere boy, with a childish crest. Perhaps nineteen years old? Duval took out his bottle of cognac and poured some into a mug. He raised the pilot's head and held it to his mouth for him to drink.

‘Thanks.'

‘Cigarette?'

He lit one and put it between his lips. Smythson had got the boat under way again and he stayed beside the pilot. The smell of burned flesh was sickening. He sought for words of comfort and cheer and while he did so, the boy spoke, croaking through the charred lips, as though he felt a need for polite English conversation.

‘Been a lovely summer, hasn't it?'

Ten

‘Fifi's getting really fat.'

‘Do you think so, Esme? I hope we're not overfeeding her.'

‘I'll give her a bit less, shall I?'

Barbara watched the child putting the fish scraps into Fifi's dish and setting it down for the cat. This was a new Esme. She still had the sulks and sullens but, in between, the improvement was remarkable. There were smiles now as well as the frowns, especially when talking about her father.

‘Dad said Mum's gone away on a holiday and not to worry if I don't hear from her. She hasn't been very well, he said, and she needed a rest. Besides, she ought to be away from the bombs. Dad promised he'll come and see me again on his next leave. Dad said he'd take me home as soon as the war's over. Dad said he's going to write to me whenever he can. Dad said I must write to him and tell him everything I'm doing. Dad said the war'll be over soon.' And so on.

Fifi was gulping down the fish, crouched low in the way that cats eat. She
did
look rather fat. The sides of her stomach were sticking out quite noticeably.

The phone rang and Barbara went to answer it. Alan Powell said, ‘Monsieur Duval should be back from London sometime later today. I thought I should let you know.'

‘Thank you.' She hesitated. ‘I'm afraid I made rather a ridiculous fuss over the file.'

‘No, you didn't. You were perfectly entitled to be upset.'

‘I talked to Rear Admiral Foster about it. He told me the Navy even has files on the ships' cats.'

‘I don't know about that.' There was a smile in his voice.

‘Yes. He says it's all to do with being shipshape.'

‘Well, he's probably quite right.'

‘Anyway, thank you for letting me know about Monsieur Duval.'

She went upstairs to check on the room. It was clean and aired, ready for his return. Clean sheets, clean towels – everything as welcoming as she could make it.

He came back in the early evening when she was in the kitchen cooking. She heard a car stop outside, the front door open, footsteps across the hall, a soft knock on the kitchen door . . . and turned to see him standing in the doorway, carrying some kind of old canvas bag.

‘Good evening, madame.'

She managed to speak normally and formally, as a landlady should. ‘Good evening, Monsieur Duval. How nice to see you again.'

Mrs Lamprey said much the same thing to him at dinner, her body inclined coquettishly in his direction. ‘
Bonsoir, monsieur. Quel plaisir de vous revoir!
'

‘
Merci, madame
.'

She waved her chiffon scarf. ‘
C'était très triste sans vous
.'

He bowed in acknowledgement of her great sadness without him. As Barbara set a dish of vegetables on his table, he exchanged glances with her.

‘
J'espère que les bombes allemandes à Londres ne vous ont pas derangé
.'

‘No. Fortunately the German bombs did not disturb me, madame.'

Before long Mrs Lamprey was leaning the Frenchman's way again.

‘Monsieur Duval . . .'

‘
Oui, madame?
'

‘
Connaissez-vous où je peux trouver le parfum français qui s'appelle L'Heure Bleue? Ma bouteille est vide
.'

Barbara saw that he was having some trouble keeping a straight face. Before he could answer, though, Miss Tindall said unexpectedly, ‘It should be
savez-vous
, Mrs Lamprey. The verb
connaître
means to be acquainted with, not to know
about
something.' She had gone pink in the face. ‘Isn't that so, Monsieur Duval? You have two different verbs in French.'

‘Indeed, that is so, Mademoiselle Tindall. It can be very confusing.'

Mrs Lamprey was looking much put out. ‘I'm sure Monsieur Duval understood perfectly well what I meant, Miss Tindall.'

‘Yes, indeed, madame. And I am sorry to hear that your bottle is empty. But I regret that I do not know where you could buy that particular perfume. Perhaps in London . . .'

‘Harrods have run out. So has Liberty's. It's the war, of course. What a pity I didn't ask you to have a search for me while you were there. I'm sure you could have found some.'

‘I should certainly have done my best.'

‘Perhaps the next time?
La prochaine fois?
'

‘Perhaps, madame.'

After dinner, he knocked again on the kitchen door, carrying his linen jacket over his arm. ‘Excuse me, madame, but would it be possible to borrow the thing for clothes . . .' he made an ironing movement with his arm. ‘This coat is very bad – even for me.'

‘I'll do it for you, if you like. It's easier really.'

‘You are sure?'

‘Yes, of course.' She took the jacket, which looked as though he'd slept in it. ‘I'll bring it up when I've finished.'

He thanked her and went away. When she had finished the clearing up she took out the ironing board and switched on the iron, using a piece of damp cloth to press out the creases in the linen. Something crackled in one of the pockets and she felt inside to remove it. It was nothing important – just a bill from a restaurant. A French restaurant called
Le Petit Coin
which he must have gone to in London. Except that the address printed below the name wasn't in London. It was in Paris. In Montmartre. And the bill was dated in September while he had been away. She studied it for a moment.
Ragoût de mouton . . . vin ordinaire . . . cognac
 . . . She found herself thinking, absurdly, how much better good old mutton stew sounded in French and, very likely, tasted. While he was supposed to have been in London, liaising with the Free French, Monsieur Duval had been in Paris. But how could he have been? France was in German hands. You couldn't get in, or out. Not by normal means. How, then, had he gone there? By boat, landing secretly, at night, on some lonely beach? And what for? Did Alan Powell know that he had been there, or had he, too, believed him to be in London? Was Louis Duval working, not for the Free French at all, but for the Germans? France, after all, was no longer an ally; she had become, in real and practical terms, an enemy.

She finished the pressing, replaced the bill in the pocket and took the jacket up to Monsieur Duval's room. When she knocked on the door he opened it at once.

‘Thank you so much, madame.'

She could see that he had been lying on the bed – there was a deep dent on the pillow where his head had rested. Of course he was tired. He had been in France. Of course his clothes were so badly creased – from some long and furtive boat journey.

‘It was no trouble.' She couldn't look at him. ‘Goodnight.'

As she went away down the corridor, she heard him call after her, but she pretended that she hadn't heard.

‘Lieutenant Commander Powell? Lieutenant Reeves here. I'm calling with a message from Mrs Hillyard for you.'

‘Yes?' Was he imagining it, or was there an undercurrent of amusement coming down the wire?

‘She rang me to ask for your number, but naturally I couldn't give it to her, so I said I'd pass on a message.'

No, he hadn't imagined it. He said curtly, ‘Which was?'

‘Would you ring her as soon as possible. Something rather urgent, she said.'

The evacuee child answered the phone at Bellevue, sounding surprisingly polite, and he waited while she went away to fetch Barbara. Then he heard her heels tapping on the tiled floor of the hall and her voice.

He said, ‘This is Alan here, Barbara. I got your message from Lieutenant Reeves.'

‘I'm sorry to trouble you, Alan, but I wondered if we might meet sometime soon. There's something I'd like to discuss with you.'

She sounded strained. Upset, but in a different way from before. ‘Yes, of course.' He cursed the busy day ahead of him. ‘I'm afraid I can't get away until this evening. Could we make it sometime after seven?'

‘Eight would be better, if that's all right with you. I'll have been able to serve dinner by then, and Esme will be safely in bed.'

‘I'll come and pick you up in the car.'

‘Don't ring at the door. I'll wait for you outside – just down the road.'

He put the receiver down, wondering what on earth had happened.

A good deal of the day was taken up with going over Duval's report of his month in France. Duval came to the HQ, looking in considerably better shape than when he had arrived back at dawn on the previous day. They went through it all again – the names and cover names, the places and the dates. The information given, the implications, the likely accuracy. During his time in France, Duval had succeeded in establishing a small but significant network of French men and women across Brittany. A base to build on. And much of the information, when duly sifted, would be extremely useful. The Frenchman had also set up some contacts in Paris that promised well. The lack of any sign of an imminent invasion of England was encouraging, to say the least, though the intense U-boat activity was anything but so. Powell perceived the threat of the U-boats as far more frightening and deadly than any of Hitler's wild invasion threats. With their new and easy access to the North Atlantic, they would make it a killing ground. British merchant shipping would be forced to avoid the English south coast and take much longer routes to north-western ports.

‘If I am to continue this work, then I should return soon,' Duval said. ‘When can it be arranged?'

‘I'll let you know.' Whether Duval went back, or not, was up to London. The various Intelligence groups worked in mysterious ways – some jealously independent, some co-operating willingly with each other, while General de Gaulle's
Deuxième Bureau
lay somewhere uneasily in the middle. And a new agency had recently come into being with an entirely different brief, from Churchill himself – not the secret collection of secret intelligence, but sabotage and acts of terrorism designed to weaken the enemy from within. All very well, in Powell's view, but the repercussions and reprisals could be devastating on other British agents being sent to operate in France, let alone the ordinary French civilians.