Here Be Monsters (4 page)

He munched for a moment. ‘How did he know you were on analysis?’

She wasn’t there ahead of him, but at least she was ready for anything. ‘Oh—‘
This had better be good, Elizabeth!
’
—
I
asked him about that … ’

‘And what did he say?’

Only the truth would do. ‘He seems to know my style. He calls it a “mind-print”.’ She shrugged, a little disbelieving, a little irritated.

‘He does?’ Another nod, and another reach towards the box. But there were so few left now that he had to lean forward to search among the empty paper containers. ‘Like the radio-operators … But to do it with SGs is really quite ingenious … He’s no fool, is your Dr Mitchell, Elizabeth.’

That was one crack too many. ‘Not
my
Dr Mitchell, Mr Latimer.’

‘No. Forgive me.’ He found his chocolate, and then turned towards the screen as he fed it to himself. ‘You know, the results of your Civil Service interview a couple of years ago, and all that … they were quite good, you know.’ He had got a chewy one this time, and it was giving him problems. ‘And your other fitness tests.’

Patronizing chauvinist
pig!
thought Elizabeth. But then she checked her own prejudice, and reassessed her judgment. What he was doing was prudently clearing her for what Paul plainly believed was beyond her capability.

Prudent level-headed Deputy-Director! ‘Colonel Butler said my results were satisfactory.’

‘More than satisfactory. They said you were a late developer, and they’d probably have failed you if you’d come to them straight from Oxford, in spite of your first-class degree and your hockey Blue … It seems that they are presently indulging—or trying to indulge—some sort of positive discrimination in that regard.’ He shook his head at the screen. ‘It won’t do, you know—it won’t do at all! Though I suppose they
might
have passed you … because you were female … ’

Patronizing chauvinist
pig!
‘I’m still female, Mr Latimer.’ Not even a secure classification was worth this! ‘I may have developed, but I haven’t changed in that respect.’

‘Oh—‘ He left the screen instantly, to blink at her in surprise, almost as though he was seeing her for the first time ‘—yes—?’

‘You sent for me, Mr Latimer. I’m sorry I was late.’ She often—too often!—saw Admiral Varney’s face, but it was only very rarely that she heard his voice.

‘Yes … Miss Loftus.’ Suddenly he really did see her. And suddenly he wasn’t a little fat man with an almost empty box of chocolates in front of him on an empty desk.

Tripod masts!

Then he relaxed, and the masts faded into her imagination, and he was a little fat man again.

‘How’s your latin, Miss Loftus—Elizabeth?’

‘My—what?’ She couldn’t have heard correctly.

‘Your Latin.
Veni, vidi
, via?’ He stared at her, and she had heard correctly. ‘Hie,
haec, hoc
—
and
Gallia est omnis divisa in panes tres?
’

She had heard correctly—but she didn’t know how to answer.

Elizabeth could only think
Paul had been wrong
!

‘No matter!’ He didn’t seem to expect an answer. He seemed to know all the answers to his own questions. ‘No matter, Elizabeth. You just tell me now about the Pointe du Hoc in 1944 instead.’

TEN YEARS
as a school-teacher had taught Elizabeth how to deal with the clever-awkward girls, who had simultaneously known too much for their own good, yet not half enough. But what she had somehow forgotten was how such girls resisted The Enemy.

‘The Pointe du Hoc is a headland on the coast of Normandy, between Grandcamp and Vierville—‘

‘Spare me the geography, Elizabeth.’ Oliver St John Latimer munched his chocolate. ‘Waterloo is a village near Brussels, and Gettysburg is a small town in Pennsylvania, and neither of them has moved an inch on the map since 1815, or 1863. So the Pointe du Hoc is still where it was in 1944—shall we take that as read?’ He munched contentedly. ‘Just tell me something I don’t know—eh?’

Dawn, 6th June, 1944, Companies D, E and F, 5th Battalion, US Rangers
—

‘
Rangers
, the Americans called them, Liza—like our
Commandos
.’ Major Birkenshawe locked a bushy white eyebrow at her. ‘You know what they are? Real cutthroats is what they are, Liza!’

Elizabeth tried not to wince. Long, long ago, when she had been in pig-tails and short skirts—when Father had first brought Major Birkenshawe to the house—the Major had told her that ‘Elizabeth’ was far too big a name for such a very little girl, and that he proposed to abbreviate it.

(
‘
You see, you
’
re a lucky little girl, to have such a name. Liz, Lizzie, Elisa
—
and Betty, and Bet, and Beth
…
Bessie, too. And when our Queen was a little girl like you, she was called
“
Lilibet
”
—
shall I call you that, eh?
’
)

‘Yes, Major. Like the Paras and the SAS?’ What really bugged her was that, in the kindest and most helpful way, he always took her ignorance for granted still, just as he had done over twenty years ago.

‘Funny thing, that,’ said Colonel Sharpe.

‘Funny, Colonel?’

‘”Rangers”, Miss Loftus.’

Now, Colonel Sharpe was different, and she was genuinely grateful to the dear old Major for producing him on demand, once she had given him the specification. But then the thing about the Major was that he knew how to obey orders. His wife had taught him that, if not the army.

(
‘
If you want a clever fella, that knows his stuff, I
’
ve just the man for you, Liza. Served on Monty
’
s staff, saw it all
—
probably planned half of it himself, I shouldn
’
t wonder
—
house full of books, head full of
knowledge
—
resigned to run the family business
—
would have run the Army otherwise. Retired now
—
Sharpe by name, and sharp by nature
—
never got on with your father
—
funny thing, that
—
‘
)

That last wasn’t really ‘funny’, because Father had never got on with masterful equals who had made successes of their lives. But everything else was undoubtedly ‘funny’ (but not very funny), about the Deputy-Director’s very specific orders. And that not only because any one of the men in the department could have done this job more quickly, if not better, but also (and more) because he had instructed her neither to use any of the department’s immense facilities, human or otherwise, nor to go straight round to the Americans in Grosvenor Square and use any of her professional contacts. And although he must have his reason for this, none was as yet readily apparent to her.

Sharpe was looking at her, and she had the uncomfortable feeling that he had already smelt a rat, while she could only smell the Major’s fierce tobacco.

(
‘
Hugh
’
s girl
—
Hugh Loftus
—
remember him, Sharpe? Used to teach the wife
’
s nieces at the High
—
works for the Government now
—
Civil Servant
—
waste of a good teacher
—
better paid though, eh Liza?
’
)

Elizabeth waited. Colonel Sharpe didn’t know what to make of her. But that was no reason why she should feed his suspicions.

‘Though perhaps not more so than our choice of “Commando” as a name for our special forces,’ he said at length. ‘You know its origin?’

It was a small innocent challenge to an ex-history teacher. ‘We took that from the Boers, who fought us in South Africa, didn’t we?’ He would appreciate a counter-challenge. ‘And we gave them “Concentration Camp” in return?’

‘What’s that?’ Major Birkenshawe bristled slightly. ‘I think you’ve got that wrong, Liza. “Concentration Camp” was a Hun invention.’

‘I’m sure you’re right, Major.’ Elizabeth smiled at him. ‘But “Rangers”, Colonel?’

He studied her for a few more seconds. ‘The original of the name is obscure. But it seems most likely that they derived from Rogers’ Rangers in the eighteenth century. And they were a corps of frontiersmen who were recruited to assist the regulars. There was a film about them—I rather think it starred Spencer Tracy.’

Major Birkenshawe grunted approvingly. ‘Damn good actor—and the delightful woman he used to appear with—cheek-bones and hair—your hair looks particularly nice today, Liza—suits you, like that—Sorry, Sharpe -Rangers, you were saying?’

Colonel Sharpe gave the Major a nod, more affectionate than condescending, and Elizabeth wondered how such an acquaintance had become more than nodding, they were such an unlikely pair. But then Father and the dear old Major had been equally unlikely friends.

Then the Colonel came back to her. ‘A curious fact, which they must have overlooked, is that the Rangers fought for the British during the American War of Independence. And that would make them not just enemies -“Loyalists” to us, of course—but actually traitors. And “traitor” is always a pejorative word.’

The Major nodded, even though he looked as though he wasn’t at all sure what ‘pejorative’ meant. ‘But they were good, though—those fellas … Saw ‘em training once, in ‘43, before I had my little misfortune.’ He had raised the stump of his right arm quite unselfconsciously. ‘
Training
, they called it—‘ Major Birkenshawe pushed his stump back into place ‘—looked
damn
dangerous to me—if you’ll pardon my language, Liza. They were shooting at each other, and blowing each other up, and climbing up cliffs—I remember thinking that the real thing couldn’t be a lot more dangerous than what they were doing.’

‘That was the Isle of Wight manoeuvres, was it?’ Sharpe turned towards him, away from Elizabeth. ‘On the cliffs?’

The stump moved, as though it had a life of its own, and was remembering. ‘Must have been ‘44. Isle of Wight—you’re right there. Shot grapnels up, with lines attached.

‘He stopped suddenly, massaging the stump and staring midway between them. ‘That’s right! Remember thinking “Sheer madness! Not a hope, if Jerry’s on the top—glad it’s not me!”’ He grinned ancient nicotine-stained fangs at Elizabeth. ‘Amazing how it comes back! Killed a lot of men training, did the Americans. Had a lot of men to kill, of course—big country … But these were good men—very keen—could see that.’ ‘And that must have been when you were involved on the Merville planning, Maurice?’ Colonel Sharpe interrupted him gently.

‘Probably was. Another piece of lunacy! “Never drop half the men within twenty miles”, I told ‘em. They wanted to land gliders right
on
the battery! “Not a chance”, I said. “Only chance you’ve got—Jerry won’t believe what’s happening—probably give him heart-failure”.’

‘But you said “Go” all the same.’ The Colonel paused. ‘And weren’t you scheming to go with them?’

‘Of course.’ The Major retired for a moment behind a foul-smelling smoke-screen. ‘Just curiosity—wanted to see what sort of b———mess-up they made of it.’ He applied another match to his pipe one-handed. ‘And they did.’ He stabbed the pipe-stem towards Elizabeth. ‘Took the battery, though—got to give them that—bloody massacre all round—sorry to have missed it. But that’s the luck of the game, Liza.’

Elizabeth stared at Major Birkenshawe. When he had talked with Father there had of course been no place for her, even if she’d wanted to stay. So, in all these years, she’d regarded him as an old buffer—to a pig-tailed child he’d seemed an old buffer from the beginning, and as they’d both aged he’d become one. But once upon a time there’d been a
young
Major Birkenshawe, happily and bloodthirstily engaged in planning daring deeds. And (what was perhaps more eloquent) he could still dismiss the ruin of his military hopes and his mutilation as ‘the luck of the game’, as Father had never been able to do.

‘Boring you—or shocking you?’ He might not be the same to her now, but she was evidently the same helpless female to him. ‘Besides—Americans, what you want -Rangers, too—Omaha, for them. And the right of the line—always the place of honour, eh Sharpe?’

‘Yes.’ Colonel Sharpe zeroed in on Elizabeth again, with that too-knowing eye of his. ‘But it’s all in the books and the records, Miss Loftus.’

‘So it is, Colonel. But is it all correct?’ She didn’t really know what she wanted.

‘What d’you mean—correct?’

‘Well—‘ How could she explain that whatever she wanted, whatever it was, could hardly be in the public library, if Oliver St John Latimer wanted it? ‘For example, the Rangers landed at a place called “Pointe du Hoc”.’

‘That’s right. That was the place Maurice saw them practising cliff-climbing for. There was supposed to be a German battery there, which had to be taken out somehow—like the Major’s battery at Merville, which was beyond the eastern flank of the British landing beaches. They both flanked the landing areas. In fact, I think the Pointe du Hoc guns could have taken in the Utah beaches as well, actually. They couldn’t be left to get on with the job, Miss Loftus.’

‘But there weren’t any guns on Pointe du Hoc, Colonel.’

He nodded cautiously. ‘No … as it happened, there weren’t. The Germans had prudently pulled them back to a new position.’

‘Which wasn’t manned?’ But if there was a mystery here, why should it interest the Deputy-Director?

‘True. But things always go wrong in battle.’ He shrugged. ‘That whole area was heavily bombed—and bombarded. But, in any case, a Ranger patrol still found the guns and disabled them. And that was even before they’d finished with the garrison at Pointe du Hoc, if I remember correctly.’