Ormerod's Landing (24 page)

The doctor pushed him towards the bed and he obligingly
climbed in. He pushed his clothes in the locker at the side. The
two Frenchmen exchanged glances, which may have been
official or not, and the doctor, with the briefest last look at
Ormerod, went back through the double doors. The orderly pulled the bedclothes up around Ormerod's neck. 'Now you sleep,' he said, indicating it was an order. 'For some time.'

The warmth of the bed pressed itself around his weary body.
He looked out, over the horizon of the sheets and along the
ranks of the still, snoring figures of the wounded soldiers. His
body was filled with a swamp of apprehension.

eight

When Ormerod awoke four hours later it was to a sense of
some excitement and expectancy in the ward. Orderlies were
hurrying about sweeping and polishing and one was arranging
a large bowl of rich autumn flowers on the central table. He watched all this activity over the snowline of his sheets, care
fully turning his gaze to take in all the rows of heads in the
line of beds opposite. Over there they looked like an opposing
army deep in the trenches. He turned his look to the left and saw a grey-faced young man returning his glance.

164

'There's a Jerry general coming,' said his neighbour. The voice was middle-class English. The young man had only one eye. 'They didn't think he'd come up here to see the enemy, but he wants to. So they're having to rush about to tidy up the place. Quite a joke really, I suppose.'

He paused and surveyed the room with his eye. 'You must have turned up very early this morning,' he said, returning to Ormerod. 'Didn't see them bring you in.'

'Very early,' said Ormerod cautiously. 'Still dark.'

'My name's Bailey,' said the young man. 'Charles. Lost my eye. See.'

'Yes,' nodded Ormerod. 'Nasty.' He thought he had better give a fictitious name, although Ormerod would still be meaningless. 'Steel,' he said. 'George Steel. Feet. Shot feet.'

'Where did you get that lot?'

'Abbeville,' said Ormerod, trying to think where the last battles had been. 'Around there,' he added cautiously.

I was in the St Valery fuck-up,' said Bailey bitterly. 'Tanks - except if you remember, we didn't have any.'

I remember,' lied Ormerod. 'Royal Artillery, me. We didn't have any guns.'

'They always seem to leave you short of essentials. What's your rank by the way?'

'Lieutenant,' said Ormerod, trying to sound like one. He had not expected to be questioned by a fellow countryman. 'Can't see me getting promotion now.'

'Same as me.' Bailey turned his head to take in the whole ward. 'Damned difficult getting used to seeing with one eye,' he said. 'The bloody nose keeps getting in the way. I never realized before now how big my nose is. Where have you been up to now? Which hospital?'

'Caen,' answered Ormerod. He realized his feet should have been bandaged, but it was too late now. He turned around carefully to look at the bed on the other side. The occupant was asleep, a head swathed in dressings, like a pudding, lying on the pillow. Turning back to Bailey he said: 'Brought me down here because they thought the air would be better for my feet.'

He grinned and the young man laughed. 'It's not bad

165

really,' he said. 'In fact the Jerry doctors and what-have-you are better than the French. I think the French have got it in for us a bit. They've got the idea that we ran away.'

'I know,' said Ormerod. 'They keep telling me.'

Bailey turned his one eye around. 'Do you think we did? Runaway?'

Ormerod was surprised at the need for reassurance. He sniffed. 'Well... no. We evacuated. That's different altogether.'

This appeared to give Bailey further cause for thought. Eventually he returned to Ormerod. I haven't told my mother I've only got one eye yet,' he said pathetically. 'Or my girl, my fiancee. I'm only twenty you know. I look older don't I? When you halve your eyes I think you double your age.'

He looked almost comically miserable. Ormerod felt quickly sad for him. 'Your mother won't mind. Mothers don't. And if your girl's anything of a girl, she won't either. She ought to be proud of you.'

The younger man grinned uncertainly. 'You think so? You think she'll still marry me? I'm like bloody Cyclops.'

'Of course. I shouldn't worry about it, son.'

Bailey hesitated. 'You're very decent,' he said. 'Very good. Can I ask you a favour?'

'You can ask.'

'I'm finding it difficult to see properly to write. It's getting used to it. You don't realize how awkward it is at first. I keep trying to push this damn great nose thing out of the way.'

'You should have your nose off as well,' joked Ormerod, trying to cheer him.

'Oh God,' smiled Bailey. 'That
would
have done it. No nose as well. That would have been goodbye to my girl. You couldn't expect her to put up with that, even if she puts up with being one eye short. No ... what I wanted to ask was - could you write a letter for me to her? Just telling her. I haven't had the guts to ask anybody up to now. It would only mean a short note, an explanation really. I think I ought to come clean about it. If I don't tell her and spend God-knows-how-long in a Jerry prison camp and then go home and she's

166

been waiting and she sees I'm missing an eye, well... it could be a big disappointment.'

Ormerod, engulfed with pity, stared at him. He reached across the space between them and patted the young man's hand. 'I'll do that for you,' he said. 'I'll do it right now. Have you got a pen and some paper?'

Bailey looked at him eagerly. "That's very decent of you,' he said.

At that moment an orderly appeared in the ward and threw a clean pair of pyjamas on Omerod's bed. 'Oh good,' he said. 'I could do with these.'

'You can thank the Jerry general for that,' said Bailey.

Only then did it hit Ormerod.
That's what was happening!
That's why Jean Le Blanc was in Bagnoles, that's why Marie-Thérèse was there. That's why he had been planted in the hospital. His face grew cold. Jesus Christ, they were going to kill the German general right here.

Almost mesmerized by the realization, he put his hands slowly to his pyjamas. He took off the dirty jacket, the smell of it hitting him as he pulled it over his head. Bailey noticed the blood on the front.

'Thought it was your feet,' he said. 'You've got blood down the front of that.'

'Cut myself shaving,' said Ormerod in what he hoped soun
ded like a jovial voice. His inside was ringing. God Almighty,
what were they going to do? They couldn't assassinate a man, not even a German general, in a
hospital.
With a loaded heart he decided they could.

Dumbly he put the pyjamas on, keeping his supposedly wounded feet out of sight. Bailey said: 'There's all British and French officers in here. I hope this Jerry hasn't come to gloat.' He handed a pen and a writing pad across to Ormerod. 'Here it is then,' he said. 'Are you sure you don't mind?'

General Wolfgang Groemann left the front entrance of the mock chateau at Tesse la Madeleine at eleven o'clock that morning, after having coffee with the senior medical staff billetted there. It was a bright day, with the autumn sharp-

167

ness gone from the air by that hour, and the lawns and trees around the building bathed with mild but comforting sunshine. There were red squirrels on the lawns and a group of German nurses were sitting by the trees, in the sun, waiting to see him as he went by. He spotted them and walked over to exchange some words with them before returning to his staff car. His aide, Major Hans Einder, was now impatient with the delay. He was happy when the timetable was strict and was just as strictly observed.

The general got into the car. Einder tapped the window and
the driver turned the large grey vehicle down the easy curving
paths towards the Rue de Jolie, which joins the twin resorts of Bagnoles and Tesse. 'It has been arranged that you visit
soldiers of all nationalities, as you wished,' said Einder primly.
He himself did not approve, although he admitted there was a certain one-upmanship in a German general inspecting vanquished enemies. 'The French and the British are in one unit
that was a hotel, by the racecourse, and there are some officers
of those nationalities in a ward at the Grand Hotel. You wish to visit both of these places?'

Groemann nodded as if nothing else had ever occurred to
him. 'We are all in the war together, Einder,' he said, philo
sophically. 'We are all to some extent casualties. Yes, I will do that.'

'There is another matter,' said Einder. 'A suggestion from the News and Propaganda Department...'

I am not standing on my head for Dr Goebbels,' said the general firmly.

Einder looked serious. He was occasionally worried about the general's future. 'It is not standing on your head, sir,' he said pedantically. 'The suggestion is that you should go out in a small rowing boat with two German wounded. If you just sit there for a few minutes, just a short distance from the shore, then the news photographers can get some pictures. A
field officer in a boat with two wounded men would be a nice
touch, don't you think?'

Groemann brightened. 'A good idea, Einder,' he nodded. I haven't been in a little boat for years. But I want to
go
for a row on the lake, not just pose for photographers.'

168

'It will not be necessary for you to row, sir,' said Binder hurriedly.

'Why not? It won't be very good publicity if the wounded men do the rowing, will it?' insisted Groemann. 'Not with the general sitting in the boat.'

Einder sighed. 'Yes sir,' he replied.

The car turned along the curve in the road beneath an outcrop of boulders called the Rock of the Dog, because a dog was said to have jumped from it years before and been saved by a miracle. On the top of the rock a Frenchman, working in the gardens of one of the former hotels, now a medical hostel, watched the car turn towards the centre of Bagnoles de l'Orne. He raised his arm in a clear signal. The car went over a little bridge and the central lake of the spa smiled invitingly in the fine morning sun.

At ten minutes before noon General Groemann entered the ward for British and French officers at the former Grand Hotel. So far his tour had been as successful as it had been informal. In Bagnoles the Occupation Forces expected no trouble from any direction. He had, of course, a military escort, but even that was not to the taste of the mild man of Minden. Frequently he made unexpected detours or instructed Einder to keep his escort at a distance.

Ormerod, propped nervously up in the bed half way down the ward, turned his head with all the other patients as the German general entered the room with his entourage. 'Good morning everyone,' said Groemann at the door. His English was firm. Various 'Good mornings' were said, or in most cases tentatively muttered, from different parts of the ward. Groemann smiled at the hesitations. Ormerod thought he looked like a reasonable man. He wondered what exactly Jean Le Blanc had planned for him.

Groemann was on the short side and slightly rounded with it. He came down the lines of beds and talked to the wounded men, not standing over them but sitting on the edges of the beds as he did so. Ormerod heard laughter coming from the far end of the ward. He waited unhappily.

The visiting party came up the other side of the room and

169

Ormerod and Bailey watched them approach. 'Doesn't seem a bad old stick, does he?' commented Bailey. 'Not like you would think.' He had his letter, his confession of having lost an eye, now sealed on his bedside locker.

Ormerod decided he did not like the aspect of the young, leaner officer at Groemann's side. The man's cane moved irritatingly against his uniformed leg and he watched the patients with something like quiet mocking. A French and a German doctor followed the party but only came forward if
some technical explanation was needed. In the background
Ormerod suddenly saw the furtive doctor who had brought him into the ward in the dark morning. The man looked whiter than his coat. His eyes seemed to stand out from his skin.

The visiting general moved unhurriedly along the iron bed-rails. The man with the bandaged head next to Ormerod had not awakened all the morning and now slept deeply. Groemann laughed quietly and put his finger to his lips as he crept by the bed on mock tip-toe. He arrived at the bottom of Ormerod's bed. The Englishman's heart seemed to slow and he could feel his hands sweating.

'Good morning to you,' said the German.

'Good morning sir,' said Ormerod. His mouth seemed to be on a hinge like that of a ventriloquist's doll.

'Too good to be in bed in a hospital,' said Groemann genially. 'I expect you would rather be in England playing cricket.'

'Well, sir,' hesitated Ormerod. 'I'm not one for cricket, and it's the wrong season. But I wouldn't mind being home.'

'Nor would I,' sighed the German reflectively. 'Perhaps one
day we can all go home. Where do you live in England?'

'London. Putney.'

'I know, I know,' smiled Groemann. 'It is on the River Thames. Putney Bridge is it not?'

'That's right, sir,' nodded Ormerod. Groemann sat on his bed.

'I was in London,' said the German officer. 'At the embassy
in 1936 and 1937. I had a very good time there. And my wife
also. My God, I like London better than Berlin!' He laughed

170

at his joke. Ormerod thought Einder grimaced. 'What is your wound?' asked Groemann.

'Feet,' said Ormerod, suddenly terrified he would be asked to display them. He saw the frightened French doctor move tentatively forward in case a quick explanation was necessary. Groemann merely nodded. 'Not a good place for wounds,' he said. 'Not the feet. You cannot escape. In the First World War men on both sides used to shoot themselves through the feet so that they could miss the fighting and be taken home.'