Ormerod's Landing (40 page)

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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.'

'They prefer to stay in their houses when the Boche are around,' said Marie-Thérèse confidently.

'No, but the Germans couldn't come either. They like to come in here. They have taken to cider. It makes them sing.'

'Is nobody serious about the war?' the girl suddenly demanded angrily. 'You make it sound as if the Germans are liberators. You're all the same.'

Paul Le Fevre turned in the dimness, the glasses in his hand.
'I wondered why you called them the Boche,' he said. 'If you lived here, you would know that you have to exist with them.
We are their prisoners but in some ways they are
our
prisoners
too. And I have to earn a living in my bar. They pay for their drinks like any other man.' He returned to the table almost stealthily and looked carefully at the girl. 'That is not to say I
love them or what they have done to France. I would kill them
for that. But for the moment I serve them drinks.'

The girl said: 'I am called Dove.' This was a surprise to Ormerod because she had not used the name before. Then he realized that on Chausey they had told no one their names. 'And I'm Dodo,' he added hastily, following her French. He
pointed to the dog sitting tiredly by his chair.
'Formidable,'
he
said.

At the sound of Ormerod's accent some sort of eagerness came into the man's face. He handed out the drinks and now
he sat down and leaned anxiously towards them. 'So, you have
come,' he said. 'From England?'

Marcel, the Chausey fisherman, stood up slowly and drained
his cognac. 'I must leave,' he said, as if not wanting to hear
more. 'I will wake my daughter. She lives near here.
Au revoir.'

They watched him as he walked towards the door. Paul rose
and went with him to unlock it. When it was open he looked into the street first and then let the old man out. Marcel went with a tired wave of his hand but without looking back.

The girl said: 'We need shelter and help.'

'You have both,' said Paul coming back to the table. 'What are you going to do? Can you tell me?' Then with new eagerness: 'There is a goods train at the station. We could blow it up!'

Marie-Thérèse closed her eyes briefly but tiredly. I think we must not run too fast,' she said. I want to know how many men in Granville we could trust to help. It is necessary to form a resistance group. That is my task here.'

'He brought you from Chausey?' he said.

'The Germans did,' said Marie-Thérèse, smiling for once. 'They can be obliging. They are also stupid. But never mind, we need somewhere safe.'

'Here,' said Le Fevre. 'This is safe.'

'You said the Germans come here to drink.'

'So they do. Where can you be better concealed than in among the enemy?'

'But he does not speak French,' she said, nodding rudely to Ormerod.

'Nor do the Germans,' he shrugged. 'They get so drunk on a few glasses of cider that they would not take any notice anyway. As you say, they are stupid. He can hide upstairs if there is an officer around, or somebody who might suspect. But they are not on the alert. They think they have won the war.'

Marie-Thérèse nodded approvingly. 'They will know different,' she said. She looked at him with a hard challenge. 'How many men in Granville love France? Enough to die for her?'

Two hours later, Ormerod, who had just been a spectator during the long conversation, most of which he did not understand, went up the stairs at the back of the bar to the toilet. The door would not shut so he stood peeing with the voices from the room below drifting up to him. A sudden wider beam of light showed that the door down there was opened more widely. He did up his buttons and went onto the landing. Le Fevre was coming up the stairs followed by the girl.

'Is there any question you want to ask?' Marie-Thérèse asked Ormerod as though all at once remembering that he existed. Le Fevre looked intensely ugly in the light of the lamp he carried, like a dwarf in a coalmine. He looked at Ormerod.

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'Questions? Me? No, not really,' said Ormerod. 'I expect you've covered everything.'

She shook her head at Le Fevre. He nodded to a bedroom door just along the landing and then, shaking hands with them both, turned the corner of the stairs and went up a further flight, the lamp diminishing as he went.

'What's happening now?' asked Ormerod. Weariness was hanging on him.

'We sleep. Tomorrow I can begin to organize matters. Here I feel we have a good beginning.' She pushed the bedroom door open and shone her torch into the void. Standing on bare floorboards was a large undulating double bed with a deep white quilt covering it.

Ormerod looked into the room. 'Where's mine?' he inquired.

'It is for both,' she said practically. 'They have no other room.'

She pushed him firmly before her like a mother shoving a reluctant child. Ormerod stepped forward. 'I'll sleep on the floor then,' he said. I expect those bare boards could be made comfortable.'

She walked in after him and closed the door. 'There is no necessity,' she said briskly. 'The bed is for both. You need to be rested as well as me.'

He looked at her carefully but she waved an impatient hand at him. 'In our situation we can have no time for modesty,' she said. 'You are so obvious, you English.'

'All right... but...' he stumbled. 'Don't blame me ..'

'There will be nothing to blame you for,' she replied firmly. 7 am going to sleep. We will often sleep together. We will have to. Surely you realize that.'

'Maybe we ought to have announced our engagement,' muttered Ormerod in the dark.

'Do not worry, monsieur,' she said, taking her shoes off and pulling her jersey over her head. She had put out the torch and she moved in the dark like a shadow. 'If we have any danger here it will not be to your virtue. If you wish to know ... I do not have time or thought for sexual matters. They are nothing to me now. Not even a necessity, like eating. So you are safe. In any case, I prefer small, elegant men.'

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With that she dropped her trousers and rolled into the bed. Ormerod began to undress more slowly. 'All I hope is that I don't forget myself in the night,' he muttered as he got tentatively into the other side of the bed, wearing his shirt and underpants.

She had almost disappeared under the blankets. He eased himself down into the soft luxury. 'Do not worry Dodo,' she said as she yawned. 'If you do forget I will kick you or poke my fingers in your eye. Then you will know I am not your wife.'

'Don't count on it,' he said. 'That's the sort of thing she does.'

Seagulls woke him the following morning. He stirred and turned towards a stick of sunlight that was poking between the window shutters. Marie-Thérèse had gone out with Paul Le Fevre leaving a message with Madame Le Fevre that he must stay in the house until her return.

Ormerod was grateful for the sleep. He eased himself from the bed and took his time over his ablutions and dressing. Madame Le Fevre, a surprisingly pretty wife for such an ugly husband, brought him some coffee, bread and
confiture,
apologizing for the lack of butter. Apparently the Germans had used all the butter. 'They eat it without bread,' she said in disgust. 'Like ice cream.'

He remained in the room, cleaning his pistol, and then lying back on the bed and wondering, not for the first time, what he was doing there. Marie-TheYese returned before midday.