Night Sky (27 page)

Shaking her head, Julie went back and sat at the desk. Suddenly she smiled. Peter looked up at her and asked, ‘Happy Mummy?’

She grinned down at him. ‘Yes, very happy Mummy!’

She looked at the blank card and thought carefully. After a moment she began to write in some of the details. She kept her name, Lescaux, and entered her father’s name correctly. But instead of her mother’s name she put ‘Jeannette Lescaux’. For her mother’s maiden name she put ‘Leforge’ because it was the first name that came into her head. Under the heading ‘Name Before Marriage’ she put nothing. To pretend to be married would complicate matters. She slipped the second identity card into her handbag.

She sat back and smiled at Peter. Then her eye caught the safe. It was still open, the pile of blank identity cards visible at the front of the shelf. On an impulse Julie reached in and took a batch off the top.

She stuffed them into her bag, her heart beating furiously. It was rather risky. But why
not
take them? They might be useful. She had never stolen anything in her life before.

Michel came back. He looked at her new card, nodded, and looked through the rubber stamps on the desk. He found the one he wanted, picked it up, inked it and stamped her new card. He then inked her thumb and pressed it on the space left for thumbprints. ‘And again. Here.’ He pressed her thumb on an official form. It was an application for an identity card.

Julie whispered. ‘You’re a magician!’

Michel shrugged, but Julie could see he was pleased.

‘How on earth did you
do
it though? I mean, why did that woman open the safe for us?’

‘Oh I told her the Germans would torture and kill you if we couldn’t find you a proper identity.’

Julie shook her head. ‘You’re amazing!’ And I mean that, she thought. She added, ‘I owe you a debt of gratitude. I hope I can repay you one day.’

‘It’s nothing. Anyway—’ he looked into her eyes ‘– it is an honour to do it for you.’

Julie blushed and stood up. Perhaps – perhaps she’d been wrong. Perhaps she had misjudged him and he was rather nice after all.

Her eye caught the rubber stamp. ‘Are there two of those?’

‘Why?’

‘I want one, that’s all.’

Michel looked at her in surprise. ‘Good God, what for?’

‘I don’t know … just in case, I suppose.’

He handed her the stamp. ‘Just don’t get caught with it, that’s all.’

They walked quickly down the passage and out of the building. By the
vélo
Michel asked, ‘Can you drive one of these things?’

‘I think so, but – what about you?’

‘I have things to do. You drive back to Tregasnou. I’ll deliver your suitcase and pick the machine up another time.’ He glanced nervously round the square and Julie suddenly thought: He’s going to stir up trouble somewhere. She said, ‘Do be careful. You’re not going to do anything silly are you?’

‘My friends and I have got to make our plans, that’s all.’

Julie looked at Michel with admiration: already he was making plans against the Germans, arranging meetings, doing something positive. She said, ‘I won’t ask what you’re planning. But whatever you do, be careful. Don’t risk your neck! And good luck!’

‘What?’ He looked at her in mild surprise.

‘I mean, the Germans … they might catch you …’ She trailed off, uncertain.

‘Ha! I won’t be going in for cheap heroics, if that’s what you mean. I’m not going to risk my neck. Quite the opposite. I think the Germans and I might get on very well.’

Julie blinked. ‘What do you mean?’

Michel leant over the bike until his face was close to hers. ‘My dear, I’m with whoever rids us of the scum corrupting this country – the right-wing dictators who’ve robbed the working people of their rightful inheritance for more than a hundred years. I’m for whoever’s against them!’

‘But you’re not going to work
with
the Germans?’

He shrugged. ‘Who knows? It depends what there is to be gained.’

‘But they’re overrunning our country. They’re – enemies!’

‘Yes, but they won’t stay for ever. And after the war –
after –
there’ll be a chance to build a new state, a people’s state. In fact, it’s the best chance we’ve ever had to sweep the system clean!’

Julie got silently on to the
vélo,
lifting Peter up in front of her. Michel untied a piece of cord attached to the small luggage rack and gave it to Julie. ‘Here, you’ll need this to keep Peter on.’ Julie took it and looped it round both her own and Peter’s waists, then tied a knot.

Michel was saying, ‘You shouldn’t meet any Germans yet. But do watch out for planes. If you hear one, make for the ditch, and fast.’ He took her face in his hands and without warning kissed her firmly on the lips.

Julie didn’t move or respond. While he kissed her she stared at the side of his head and his closed eyes and thought: Why did I ever think I might like this man?

Michel stood back and said, ‘Juliette, keep yourself safe for me, won’t you?’

Julie stared at the ground then looked up at him. She said, ‘No!’ and saw a look of surprise on Michel’s face. ‘Look, I owe you a big favour which I will try to repay one day. But while you … you play your dirty games, forget anything else. Especially friendship! How you can consider dealing with the Germans is … beyond me!’

He was annoyed. ‘You just don’t understand.’

‘That’s right, I don’t. Goodbye, Michel.’

She pedalled slowly away, wobbling slightly as she got her balance.

He was shouting. ‘I’ll send your suitcase over when I can.’

She didn’t turn round but pedalled rapidly until the motor fired.

Peter squealed with excitement. ‘Mummy, we’re going so fast!’

Julie didn’t answer. She was thinking about Michel. How could he? How
could
he? Whatever one believed it must be wrong to actually
help
the enemy. That would mean helping to prolong the war. It might even mean helping to kill one’s fellow countrymen. As she rode along she shook her head and muttered in disbelief. God only knew what Tante Marie would say when she heard …

The thought of Tante Marie and the small grey-stone house cheered her up. She bent slightly and briefly kissed Peter’s head.

Peter’s small voice came floating up. ‘Mummy, are we going home?’

Julie said firmly, ‘Oh yes, darling! We’re going home.’

A
T LAST A
tender came into sight, nosing its way round the end of the distant pier and heading towards the warship anchored in the middle of the large natural harbour. Although the harbour was well protected from the rolling Channel seas and long Atlantic swells, a blustery west wind was funnelling between the hills, creating an unpleasant little chop which made the tender roll slightly as it progressed steadily across the water.

Richard Ashley watched it approach and thought longingly of sleep. He’d snatched only a couple of catnaps in the last thirty-six hours and now he was dog-tired. It would be sensible to go back to his bunk and turn in. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. An evening’s run ashore was not something to be given up lightly, not when you’d gone without leave for three weeks. And particularly when the leave was here in Falmouth.

The place had happy memories for him – of sailing here in
Dancer
, first, in the early days, with his father, then later with friends from Dartmouth. Once, though, he had come here alone. He’d been on passage to the Scillies, and Falmouth, being the most westerly port on the English mainland, had been the last stopping place before setting out on the final sixty miles of open sea. He remembered that holiday among the beautiful, bleak Scillies with especial fondness.

A group of ratings clustered at the rail, waiting impatiently for the tender. For them, Falmouth was just another port with another lot of pubs.

Not that pubs weren’t a consideration for Ashley too. He enjoyed drinking. Just as he enjoyed the other opportunities ashore. In his wallet he had the telephone number of a girl he vaguely knew who lived not far away. He would take her out to dinner if she were free. It had been well over a month since he’d spent an evening with a girl.

A night out would cheer him up. Like everyone else in the ship he needed it. They’d had a rotten couple of months. After Dunkirk they’d started convoywork, escorting ships along the south coast and through the Dover Straits, fighting off increasingly heavy air attacks. By the end of July they were losing ships at an alarming rate and, when three destroyers were lost in the space of a few days, the Admiralty was forced to abandon day-time passages through the eastern half of the Channel. Now even the western Channel was difficult. On this last convoy, which had been westward bound, they had been attacked by Stukas south of the Isle of Wight and had lost a horrifying five ships before the attack had been driven off. It seemed to Ashley that, ever since Dunkirk, the Navy was being forced inexorably out of the Channel.

The tender was closer now, and turning in a long slow arc which would bring it neatly alongside the destroyer. Ashley put his face up to the blustery west wind and breathed deeply, willing himself to wake up.

‘God, they’re not letting you loose too, are they, Ashley?’

He turned and saw Blythe, the gunnery officer, also in best shore-going uniform.

Ashley smiled. ‘Of course. Begged me to go actually.’ He thought how trite and out of place the old jokes sounded now, yet one trotted them out as a matter of course, to maintain a feeling of normality.

Blythe said, ‘Want to join forces? I thought of sampling the ale in a few of the local establishments.’

Ashley watched the tender bump alongside and considered. An evening with Blythe would be ruinous. The two of them had been out drinking together once before and ended up speechless and legless on the floor of a hotel ballroom in Weymouth. His hangover had lasted two days.

He chuckled at the memory. ‘Just a quick one then. But I won’t be able to stay long.’

‘Aha!’ Blythe gave him a steely glare. ‘A woman, is it?’

Ashley grinned enigmatically and started down the gangway to where the tender was waiting, already crowded with the ratings who, anxious to start their precious leave, had swarmed aboard the moment it came alongside.

As the two men took their seats the boat drew away and Ashley turned to get a good view of the forward bulwarks, where a damage repair party was working on a series of dented, hole-peppered plates. A gunner had died up there during the last air attack. Although they’d been at war for a year, it was the first time Ashley had seen a man die at close quarters. The scene was still vivid in his mind.

He shook his head and muttered to Blythe in an undertone, ‘You feel so damned ineffectual.’ Blythe nodded; he knew exactly what Ashley meant. In company with another destroyer they had been trying to protect fourteen ships against a dozen or more enemy aircraft: an unpleasantly one-sided fight.

Ashley added, ‘Let’s hope the RAF have some more luck soon.’ The Battle of Britain had been raging for a couple of months and still the bombers came, against convoys, against ports and military establishments and, increasingly now, against cities and civilian targets.

The tender buffeted its way up-wind towards the town nestling comfortably in the lee of a hill, its buildings rising haphazardly from the water’s edge. Eventually they came to the small-boat moorings, where coastal patrol boats, oyster smacks and the occasional yacht lay swinging to the tide.

Suddenly Ashley peered ahead. An MFV – a motor fishing vessel – lay close under the town. She was painted dull grey and had obviously been requisitioned as an inshore patrol boat. Yet there was something unusual about her, something that didn’t quite fit. For a moment he couldn’t place what it was, but then, as the trawler came into full view, he had it.

The vessel was French. It was nothing definite, nothing you could tie down. But her lines and the long canoe stern definitely looked more Breton than Cornish. As the tender passed astern of her, Ashley saw someone come out of the deckhouse and saunter to the rail. He was wearing plain overalls and was bare-headed. A cigarette hung from his lower lip in the Gallic manner.

Ashley had seen French fishing boats in England before – everyone had. They had been appearing regularly since the fall of France in June, three months before. But this was the first time he had seen one under the white ensign. He wondered if the crewman on deck had been a French fisherman and, if so, how he liked Naval discipline. Not, he guessed, very much at all.

The tender came alongside a stone quay. Ashley was the first off, running up the steps two at a time and striding away across the cobblestones. Blythe was panting when he caught up with him. ‘Gosh, what’s the hurry, old man?’

‘I spied a pub, Blythe, and I didn’t want it to get away.’ In truth he had been in a hurry to feel the land under his feet and he had run up the steps for the sheer pleasure of it. Like most people who loved the sea, he hated to spend too long on it and, after a few weeks, felt desperate for the land again.

Blythe laughed and followed Ashley up a narrow street and into the saloon bar of a pub with a low door and thick oak beams. Ashley knew immediately that it was the sort of pub he liked – old, rather dowdy and, most important of all, unpretentious. It would be very easy to stay here all evening and drink several pints too many. Instead, he had just one pint and went out to find the nearest telephone box.