Ormerod's Landing (47 page)

At eleven o'clock on that October Sunday morning a booted

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and helmeted German band with glockenspiel and sun-reflect
ing souzaphone stomped melodiously into the modest town. Some of the people had come out in their best clothes to see the ceremony of the bells, not as many as usual but sufficient to crowd the main square. Germans or no Germans, the bells
had been made there in Villedieu and must be properly blessed
and sent on their way. A platoon of infantry marched after the
band and drilled noisily on the cobbles, forming a rectangle around the three
cloches
standing on their cart. The crowd
waited for the priest and the German General Wolfgang Groemann
.

At a window overlooking the square, like a disgruntled portrait in a frame, sat Jean Le Blanc, his domed head hidden beneath a trilby. He watched cynically as the despised Germans paraded. From the edge of his mouth, but without ceas
ing his watching, he spoke to a Frenchman stationed within the
room. 'One day,' he said casually, 'I think I would like to blow up a German band.' The souzaphone was yawning almost below the window. He took a last draw at his cigarette and dropped the stub into the mouth of the instrument. A thin finger of smoke curled from it.

Beneath the shell of his bell Ormerod listened to the muffled
music and tapped out time with his finger. It was very hot
inside the bell and he was sweating heavily. He rested his fore
head against the metal. He heard the boots of the soldiers striding on the cobbles and then the orders as they halted and stamped around into their ceremonial formation. He was, he reflected unhappily, surrounded.

General Wolfgang Groemann, the burgher of Minden, delighted with his bargain purchase of the bells, arrived smiling in an open staff car. Jean Le Blanc, observing from his win
dow, could easily have shot him through his medals. But there
was time for that and very soon. The general acknowledged the
salutes of his soldiers, did the statutory
Heil Hitler,
although he did not much care for the slogan, particularly in the middle
of a conquered town, and stepped down to be greeted by the
mayor.

The religious procession followed, the priest and the ecclesi
astical officials with the decorated cross, and a bobbing line of

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surpliced choirboys. The German beamed when he saw them. He began to think that the occupation might, after all, be peaceful and a success. Jean Le Blanc watched him, seething within like a cat unable to touch a fat canary. He consoled himself with the promise of what was to follow.

The priest had a troubled conscience about the ceremony, but he argued inwardly that the Germans had so far behaved themselves in the district. And the town needed to sell bells. He had given permission for the church to take part as normal, after consultation with his bishop, but he had personally baulked at the ringing of his own church bells. They remained silent. He told the general that the belfry was discovered to be unsafe.

While Ormerod and Marie-Thérèse sweated under their respective bronze covers, the ceremony proceeded. They were grateful that it was not protracted. The prayers and responses came to an end while the sweat ran into Ormerod's eyes. Then the band played
'La Marseillaise,'
followed more loudly by
'Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles\
and the hidden couple felt the cart shudder beneath them as the decorated dray horses were hitched. Then the muffled band began a rousing tune and the bells began to move. As the wheels began to grind on the cobbles, the general, feeling pleased with the day, the bells and the ceremony, stepped forward and gave each one a small tap with his knuckle. 'Good,' he nodded. 'Off you go - home to Minden.'

Ormerod rested his head against the casing, fatigue and relief consuming him. He wondered how Marie-Thérèse was feeling. The people were wordless as the three domes moved from town. Usually this was a signal for rejoicing, but today it was not the same. The crowd dispersed with bleak expressions and bowed heads. Only the children made any sounds as the Germans marched away.

The priest and his procession returned to the church, bright colours and silent faces, and with the band in front and the platoon of infantrymen behind, the bells were borne to the railway station.

General Wolfgang Groemann went home to lunch, well satisfied with the sunny morning. He had rarely felt so much at

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peace in a conquered land. On his desk was the memorandum confirming that the following Thursday morning he would be
visiting the wounded in the hospitals in the Red Cross town of
Bagnoles de l'Orne. From that visit he would not return.

At Villedieu the three bronze bells on their pallets were hoisted
aboard a special truck on a goods train that left the same afternoon for the east. It made its unscheduled stop at
Vire, twenty-eight kilometres towards Paris, in the early even
ing. It was becoming dark when six men arrived at the goods yard adjoining the station and climbed onto the wagon carry
ing the bells. Jean Le Blanc watched from a bicycle propped
against the quiet wall of the station.

The men manoeuvred a small rattling crane alongside the
wagon and hitched its hook to the first bell. The crane creaked
and the cable tautened. The bell was raised a few inches at a time. Marie-Thérèse, like a curled-up baby, tumbled out into the arms of one of the men.

The crane was then moved along to Ormerod's bell. Grate
fully he felt it being raised a few inches at a time and he knew
his ordeal was over. He could scarcely move his limbs and the
men had to help him to the ground. The bells were quietly replaced and the men took the Englishman and the Frenchwoman with them into Vire.

They went through the shadows of the small town to another
'safe' house where a young girl gave them some food, a stew
and bread and a bottle of wine. Several furtive people arrived
and departed during the evening. None of them spoke to Ormerod
, nor could he understand anything that was said. It was
like watching a shadowgraph.

His body was still stiff from the hours beneath the bell and eventually he nodded to sleep in a rough wooden chair in the main downstairs room of the house. He had been sleeping for almost an hour when Marie-Thérèse woke him firmly.

'We leave soon,' she said.

'Oh God. Tonight?'

'Yes. You should be glad. We go to Bagnoles.'

'Ah,' he said, sitting up stiffly. 'That's more like it.'

There was an oil lamp in the room. She allowed herself a

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smile in its light. 'There is time for you to wash and shave your
self before you go,' she said.

Ormerod blinked. 'My disguise not pretty enough for you, eh lady?'

'You look as you are, a fugitive,' she said. Ormerod rose clumsily.

'If it's to Bagnoles we're going, I ought to get myself cleaned
up. I want to look tidy for Mr Smales.'

'Ah, Smales, there is another thing,' she said.

'What other thing?'

She regarded him steadily. 'We have an important operation
in Bagnoles,' she said. 'Nothing must get in its way .,.'

'Oh, now, look here ...' he began to protest.

'Everything will be okay,' she assured. 'But let
us
find Smales
for you - our local people will know where he is, or they can find out. You are not the most silent of men, Dodo, and we must tread carefully.'

Ormerod studied the girlish face in the lamplight. 'Le Blanc's
put his spoke in, hasn't he?' he guessed. 'He's the one. Well I've
come for Smales, and I intend to get him. So the Percheron bloody horse can stuff that...'

'We are under Jean's orders,' she told him bluntly. 'Nothing
can go against that. But we will discover about Smales. I prom
ise, Dodo.'

He rose grumpily. 'I get the feeling I'm being buggered about,' he said. 'What if I don't agree?'

'Jean Le Blanc will shoot you,' she said simply. 'Then you'll
never get to Smales.'

Ormerod knew where the toilet was. He had heard the flush going. He sighed. 'All right. I don't like it, but I'll go along with it.' He regarded her small face seriously. He could not resist touching the cheek with his finger. 'You promise, then,' he said. 'About Smales?'

I promise,' she said. She put up her hand and held his finger against her cheek. 'At Bagnoles,' she said. 'It will be something
amazing.'

They travelled to the fringe of Bagnoles de l'Orne in a butcher's van taking meat to the hospitals. In the hour's journey

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Ormerod was knocked first one way and then the other by sides of pork swinging from hooks. It was not a refrigerated van but it was very cold. He and Marie-Thérèse crouched together in the darkness.

Once they were stopped at a German check-point but the driver of the van was either convincing or the soldiers were lazy because they did not open the rear doors. Ormerod and the woman breathed with relief among the pork.

At the conclusion of the journey they left the van stiffly and were conducted by a young priest to the organ loft of a church on the outskirts of Bagnoles. Ormerod sat on the floor next to Marie-Thérèse who was bowed with exhaustion. He looked about him. The pipes of the organ came like silver fingers through the floor, the roof went up into medieval dimness inhabited by shadows, spiders and bats.

A man came from the town with bread and cheese and coffee. Two mattresses and some blankets were hauled up from below and the fugitives were left there in the dark, the autumn wind snorting through the cracks and crevices in the ancient roof. Marie-Thérèse had hardly spoken a word. Her white face could be seen in the dark. Ormerod arranged the mattresses side by side and helped her to lie down. Then he stretched out gratefully beside her, held his large arms about her slim form, and they slept.

In the morning the furtive man who had previously brought the food returned with more bread, cheese and coffee. Ormerod sat up achingly. Birds were fluttering high up in the ceiling and splinters of daylight showed through the roof. 'The diet is a bit unvaried,' said Ormerod as he and Marie-Thérèse faced each other across the mattresses. 'No one can say you eat well as a spy.'

'We are
here,''
she pointed out. 'That is a victory for us. It was ingenious, don't you think, to get us away beneath the bells?'

'Ingenious but uncomfortable. Now I know how the clapper feels. Anyway, this is Bagnoles. Just think, chummy Smales may be just around the corner.'

She smiled, but seriously. The dusty light in the loft suited her face. 'You will get your chance,' she assured him. 'Smales

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will be found. But first, as I told you last night, Jean Le Blanc has some plans for Bagnoles.'

'Can't say I like the look of friend Jean,' admitted Ormerod. 'He puts the wind up me a bit.'

'The winds up you?'

'Not winds, wind. One wind. It means I'm worried about him.'

'Worried? You mean he frightens you?'

'Well not quite, but it will do. He looks the sort who is capable of anything.'

'That is why we need him. There are too many old women in France. He hates the Boche as I do. It made me sick when I heard French people singing songs with the Germans yesterday. This country is grovelling on its stomach. Now we even give our church bells to the Nazis.'

A noise came from below and Ormerod's fingers went to the gun. It was Jean Le Blanc. His bold dome came through the trapdoor. 'Ah, it's Humpty Dumpty,' said Ormerod.

'Ca va?'
the man said, climbing like an agile giant through the trapdoor. 'It goes well?'

'We are recovered,' answered Marie-Thérèse. 'Are there no alarms?'

'It is quiet,' Le Blanc nodded. 'We have spent all night booby-trapping the bells. When they get to Minden they will explode.'

'Christ, you think of everything don't you?' said Ormerod grudgingly. 'Let's hope nobody moves them in Paris.'

'They are the general's special plaything,' said Le Blanc. 'And the bombs will only blow up when the bells are moved from their bases.' He smiled like somebody remembering a kindness. 'They will make only one sound, those bells, and it will not be ringing.'

He turned his back on Ormerod as though he had nothing more to say to him. He faced the girl, sat down and they conversed rapidly in French for ten minutes. Eventually he seemed satisfied and rose from the mattress.
'Au revoir, Monsieur I'Anglais,'
he said to Ormerod as he opened the trapdoor and descended the ladder. 'Soon there will be important work for you to do.'

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'I can't wait,' nodded Ormerod dryly. The dome began to descend. 'Mind your head,' he called after it. 'They'll never put it back together again.'

For three days Ormerod remained in the church loft. He was simply left there while Marie-Thérèse spent hours away, returning late to sleep exhausted on her mattress on the floor. They seemed to have no use for him; or they had concluded that he was too high a risk. He was bored but not sorry.

The man who had brought them food came back twice a day
and replenished Ormerod in the manner of a zoo keeper feeding a captive bear. He put the food over the top of the trapdoor, muttered a scattering of indistinguishable phrases and went away again. Ormerod grumbled to Marie-Thérèse when
she returned unexpectedly in the middle of the afternoon. She
appeared white and drained.

'I'm beginning to feel like the housewife who only ever sees
the milkman,' he complained. 'Off you go to work and I'm stuck here all day waiting for you to come back.'

She understood the wry joke and she smiled faintly at him. 'I am sorry Dodo,' she said wearily. 'We are getting men together here. It is very good. We are organizing something ... something very big. We will need you then.'