Ormerod's Landing (14 page)

The sergeant sighed. 'It is terrible,' he said. 'They are good boys. But they are not supposed to come out here. It is against the rule of the army, you see. So far we have kept it a secret. Nobody knows officially. That is why we have come over at this time of night. We ourselves are not supposed to be here, you understand.'

The elder fisherman nodded. The sergeant said: 'One is a boy from my home town. If anything has happened to him I

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will be the one to have to tell his mother.' He seemed close to tears. 'In the war you can be killed,' he said. 'That is understood. But fishing ...'

Ormerod sat with the dog curled untidily on his lap and his anxiety sitting on his shoulder. But even in that condition he felt a certain sorrow for the German sergeant who now sat down and wiped his good-natured eyes. Ormerod thought he saw Marie-Thérèse curl her lip.

Apart from the sergeant, the other soldiers were very young. One of them, his pint of cider held nervously beneath his nose, moved over towards Ormerod and sat down, putting his hand out to pat the mongrel. As though afraid of the German, the animal made a small wet on the Englishman's lap.

'Wie heisst er?'
asked the young soldier.
'Quel est son nom?'

Ormerod looked down at the dog as if wondering whether to ask it. It was a mean, mangy mongrel, with watery eyes, a dirty white, brown and grey coat and bad breath.

'Formidable,'
Ormerod replied in what he hoped sounded like a French voice. All the fishermen began to laugh and the eyes of Marie-Thérèse darkened. Nothing must seem strange or come as a surprise. But the Germans laughed too and it seemed to cheer the sergeant up. He winked at the older man. 'While we are on Chausey,' he said, 'we will take back a little wine from the chateau. Nobody will miss a few bottles.'

Marcel shrugged. 'You are the bosses,' he said. 'There is much wine there. By the end of the war it will be sour anyway. Go and help yourselves.'

'And,' said the sergeant, now seriously, looking more like a German soldier, 'we must return tonight. As I told you, our journey is not official, although I think we must now report the two boys missing. But we need someone to pilot us to Granville. It is difficult in the dark. Who will it be?'

The old man would have made a good spy or an actor. Not a flicker of expression crossed his face. I will take you,' he answered with a heavy nod. I know every rock and current. And you can do a service for us,
mein Herr.'

'What is that?' asked the sergeant. His men were moving out of the door into the moonless night. One of them began to sing softly.

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'This man,' said Marcel pointing to Ormerod. Ormerod
stiffened. 'And this woman,' he nodded at
Marie-Thérèse
. 'They
have to visit a woman at Julioville, the lady's grandmother. She is sick. Could we take them also?'

Ormerod marvelled at the simplicity of it. He thought he detected a quick touch of amusement in the girl's straight
mouth. The sergeant looked at them and nodded immediately.
'Yes, yes, that will be all right,' he said in his French. 'There
is plenty of room in the boat.' He went to the door. 'Be ready in
twenty minutes,' he said. 'We will be back with the wine then.'

For a long interval after he had gone there was silence in the room. They could hear the sergeant calling through the
night after his men. His shouts diminished and the grins spread
around the faces. Only the old man remained serious. 'Is that satisfactory?' he said to Marie-Thérèse.

'Very poetic, monsieur,' she replied politely. 'You get the
Germans themselves to deliver us.'

'We will be rid of you,' he said without a smile. 'They are
doing us a service.' He turned to Ormerod and for some reason his expression eased. 'You must take the dog with you, mon
sieur,' he said. 'Your
Formidable?
He saw a protest about to break from Marie-Thérèse and he put his hand up to hush her. 'A man with a dog, especially a poor dog like that, will never cause suspicion,' he said. 'That is why I placed the animal on his lap. People always think that a man with a dog
comes from the district where he is seen with the dog - that he
cannot be a stranger. So take him. We will be rid of him also.'

Ormerod glanced at
Marie-Thérèse
. She knew a good idea when she heard one. She nodded. 'Yes. That is right,' she said
grudgingly. 'We will take him. I am glad we have found
something
at least in this place.'

The old man looked at her sourly but merely shrugged. 'You have yet to see the rest of Normandy,' he said. 'You may be
disappointed.'

I think I will find some
fight
in Normandy,' said the girl bitterly. 'Some men with guts.'

I think you will find they are busy gathering the corn and the apples,' Marcel replied evenly. 'Just as they have always done at this time, as you well know. The countryside between

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this part of the coast and Paris has not been touched by the war, there is no destruction, and many French soldiers, those that survived, are back in their homes. Just ask them if they
want to fight. You may find you are mistaken. The time when
they could fight, when they had the heart to fight, is gone, my
dear.'

He stood carefully. I must get my coat for it looks like rain,' he said, still looking at the girl. 'When I get back I expect the
soldiers will be here, so now I would like to wish you luck - at
least the luck to survive.' He turned to Ormerod, whom he seemed to regard, rightly, as a victim of circumstances. He
shook his hand. 'I hope that you see England again, monsieur,'
he said more gently. 'Try and stay away from trouble if you can.'

"Thank you, I shall,' said Ormerod, struggling for something
to say. He stood up and the dog dropped from his lap leaving a wet patch on the front of his trousers. The fishermen all
grinned boyishly. 'Incidentally, what's the dog's real name?' he asked. 'I mean, if I need to call him, it's no good calling him
Formidable,
because he won't answer. And that will certainly
look suspicious.'

'He has never had a name,' said the old fisherman. 'Not that
I know.
Formidable
suits him very well. He will soon get used
to it.' He grinned with broken teeth like a fallen stone wall. 'Perhaps you are his destiny.'

Granville stands almost at the base of the upraised finger of
the Cotentin Peninsula, twenty-six kilometres north-east of
Avranches, and above the right angle where Brittany and Normandy join. On a fine day the pile of Mont St Michel can be seen from the pont across the enormous bay.

It is an old rock town, with a dominant cape carrying the
haute ville
high over the sea and with a complete view of the safe and enclosed harbour. On the high ground is a solid granite church with a dome and almost beside it a quadrangle
of stone barracks dating from the nineteenth century, which in
the autumn of 1940 housed the German garrison of the town. The place smells of salt fish and oil. It is the home of the family of Christian Dior.

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The boat carrying the five Germans and their modestly looted wine and with Marcel, Ormerod and Marie-Thérèse approached the outer harbour at ten minutes to midnight on September 21st. Ormerod, sitting on a cross bench, with
Formidable
sleeping damply under his arm, felt tension and alarm as he watched the ramparts of the town grow around them in the dark. It was like going into a large and gloomy prison. The girl sat moodily beside him, trying to smile when one of the young soldiers attempted conversation in fragmented French. Fortunately the sergeant, the only German whose French was adequate, was in the wheelhouse, so talking with him was unnecessary.

The unaccustomed gun under Ormerod's armpit was rubbing and hurting. It would have been a relief to have taken it out. He wondered how the soldiers, since their trip was unofficial, would get beyond the eyes of the guards at the harbour entrance, but apparently this had been arranged. The old fisherman had taken the wheel to enter the harbour and the German sergeant picked up a signal lamp and flashed three long beams in the direction of the stone mole. A single flash returned. Someone shouted from there and the sergeant waved his arm.

The boat chugged through the watery shadows of the harbour and eventually curled in easily alongside a wooden quay where Marcel eased back the engine and then stopped it completely.

'Good, good,' said the German sergeant. "Thank you, my friend. Now where will you stay? And how will these people get to Julioville? It is five kilometres. We would give you a lift in our truck, but the military police do not approve.'

'It does not matter,' said Marcel. 'I have many friends here in Granville. I will get a bed. These people also. Tomorrow they can go to Julioville. It would be no good waking a sick woman at this hour anyway.'

'Fine,' said the sergeant. 'Come on boys.' He motioned the young soldiers up the weedy wooden ladder and onto the pier. They tramped up, each carrying two bottles of wine. Then he nodded to the Chausey fisherman and then to the girl and Ormerod. Marie-Thérèse went up the ladder first and then Ormerod and then the old man. The sergeant said to the

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latter as he was leaving the boat: 'It is a pity that one does not smile. She would be very pretty.'

'She is nervous of soldiers,' said the fisherman. 'And of your soldiers especially.'

'I see. Well, that is to be expected. Invaders, monsieur, can hardly be expected to be loved.
Auf wiedersehen.'

'Au revoir,'
said the Frenchman.

'Au revoir,'
repeated Ormerod and the girl almost together. They had reached the top of the wooden ladder. He set the dog down on the cobbles where it cocked its leg against a pile of cable. Ormerod looked towards the dark town. It was ten minutes past midnight. Ormerod was in Occupied France. He had made his landing.

'Where are we going?' asked Marie-Thérèse. The landing in France seemed, for the moment anyway, to have reduced her aggression. She looked about her as if she were in a foreign country.

'There is a house not far from here,' replied the old man, 'It is owned by a man called Paul Le Fevre. He is somebody who has some sympathy with your cause.'

Ormerod saw how quickly the sharp lights came into the eyes of the woman. 'It is your cause also,' she said to Marcel. 'Remember that.'

He shrugged. 'I am too old for causes, madame,' he said. 'I have seen too many of them.' He obviously considered that was answer enough because he began to move along the cobbles of the harbour. They had only gone a short distance, Ormerod and Marie-Thérèse following the fisherman, when the sergeant and the soldiers returned in their small truck.

'Heil Hitler,'
recited Marie-Thérèse quietly as it pulled to a stop.

The sergeant leaned out of the cab. 'We'd better give you a lift after all,' he whispered. "There's some sort of emergency happening. God knows what we've got to fear from the English, but we do. You'll be picked up in no time - there's a patrol just along the road. Jump in.'

All three clambered in and the German soldiers dutifully surrounded them. 'If you're in trouble - we're in trouble,' the

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sergeant called back as he started the engine. 'Where shall I drop you?'

'By the bar on the corner of the hill,' instructed the old man.

'La Belle Helene,'
said the sergeant immediately. 'I know it.'

Standing among the young German soldiers in the back of the truck, Marie-Thérèse shot a glance at the fisherman. His
face was expressionless. His eyes were dull. The truck started forward and in less than two minutes the soldiers were calling
joking remarks to their comrades on a patrol line marching along the harbour.

They drew up shortly after and the two men, the girl and the
dog jumped to the road. The sergeant's arm came from the cab in farewell.

'Wave,' said Marie-Thérèse bleakly. 'Show how friendly we
are.'

'Well
he
was,' said Ormerod reasonably. 'Couldn't have found a nicer chap.'

'We are not fighting one sergeant,' she returned. 'At least I am not.'

'It was still very obliging of them to deliver us,' said Ormerod
quietly. 'Christ, he'd get shot too if we were caught.' The
fisherman had pushed a bell and now a window opened and a
head emerged.

'Who is it? What's going on?' it demanded.

'Paul,' said the fisherman, 'it is Marcel from Chausey.'

'My God, what are you doing in Granville at this time of night?'

I have brought some ... people.'

I see ... wait a minute.'

A thin light appeared behind the door of the bar and it was
unlocked and unbolted. They slid in through the half-door. The
bar was shabby, tables and chairs and a counter, all in need of renovation, with a parrot in a cage over the counter. There was
a cloth over the parrot but Ormerod could hear it clucking in annoyance at being disturbed.

Paul Le Fevre was an ugly, balding man with a grin like a
monkey. He set the lamp down on the table and pulled out
chairs for them. I will get you some cognac,' he said, going
towards the bar. 'It gets cold now.' He busied himself in the

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shadowy bar. His body was short and round and his arms long.
His shadow looked like that of a well-fed spider. 'I closed early
tonight,' he said over his shoulder. 'The Germans have some
make-believe emergency, so the customers stayed away.'