Spook's Gold (33 page)

“My wife and son,” he provided. “My wife died in the bombing of the town. My fault really. That was in June 1940 when those...
people
invaded our country. Evreux has a big strategic importance for them, since we are on the main rail line from Paris to Caen and Cherbourg. They flattened the town into quick submission, did not bother trying to take it with any finesse or with any consideration for the civilians that were trapped in the town under their bombardment. Their only aim was to subdue us and move on as quickly as possible to secure the coast.”

“Why ‘your fault’?”

“Because I was stubborn. When the Germans arrived and their intention became clear, I knew that doctors would be needed in the town and so I insisted on staying. My wife was a nurse and so of course she insisted on staying too.”

“Then she did her duty as a French woman. I don’t see how it could be your fault.”

Doctor Corneille shrugged, his body language making it clear that the point was entirely academic now.

“What about your son?”

“He got caught up in some minor problem that those bastards labelled ‘subversive’. Not out and out resistance activity you understand, more a case of publicly criticising them; he was deeply affected by the death of his mother. But it was sufficient to give them justification to send him to a forced labour camp in Germany. Those scum don’t even give us the right to exchange letters, so I have not heard from him in over two years.”

Lemele was searching for words, caught between continuing with her commiseration about the loss of his wife, and finding something reassuring to say about his son, when he exploded. “What kind of insanity is this after the Great War that was supposed to end all wars?  What kind of people are these, for god’s sake?”

She stood silently, letting him calm a little before replying. “I can’t answer that. I can only say that we must each do the right thing. Right now, for me and for Lieutenant Marner, it is catching a killer.”

Doctor Corneille turned and stood silently surveying his garden through the window. Then he said softly, “Okay. Despite my loathing for him and his countrymen, I’ll help you.”

Chapter Thirty Three

Lemele was impatient to keep moving but it was entirely impossible due to Marner being unconscious. Doctor Corneille was unable to define how long he would be out cold for, only that he would keep Marner lightly sedated to deepen his sleep and so speed up the recuperation. They left him on the surgery table; he would have no cause to question how comfortable it was or was not compared to a real bed.

Now that it was clear to Lemele that she could not move on and was obliged to accept this hiatus, she revelled in the opportunity to relax and unwind. A long hot bath was followed by washing and repairing her clothes, eating, sitting in the garden enjoying the sun and the birdsong. It was also a luxury to sleep that night in a bed that was not an old, tired mattress in a shabby, soulless hotel.

She saw little of Doctor Corneille other than the hours that they came together to eat. Where he went in the large rambling house or what he did, she had no idea. He was an amiable host and she had no sensation of being an intruder or unwelcome. Whilst they ate he asked her about her family and her husband, to which he nodded but offered no opinions or wisdom.

Her only moment of panic was late in the first afternoon when she was sitting in the garden, half-dozing in the shade of one of the trees. In her semi-sleeping state she was aware of a noise, could not quite identify it, then came fully awake with a start as she realised that it was the sound of explosions. She jumped up and scanned the sky; in the distance to the north there were planes circling, dirty blots of smoke from anti-aircraft fire staining the clear blue sky around. As she rushed up the steps and in through the kitchen door she nearly collided with the doctor, who was coming to intercept her. He laughed gently at her distressed state. “I thought that you might be a bit worried, but there really is nothing to panic about. The Americans and English come and bomb the local airfield every few days. Until a year ago it was a very large and active one, but the Luftwaffe has all but abandoned it and there are just some old junk planes there now. The Germans like to keep repairing it; they use forced labour to fill in the holes and it obliges the Allies to keep coming back, wasting fuel and explosives. We will be more worried when the Allies stop bombing it.”

“Why?” asked Lemele, extremely puzzled by this statement.

“Because it will mean that they are close and so plan to be using it soon themselves.”

“But.... but that’s good isn’t it?” she protested. “It means that we will be liberated.”

The doctor smiled indulgently at her naivety. “Take a walk around the local streets and see what happened the last time two armies squabbled over this town.”

Lemele shook her head, not agreeing with his logic, believing that freedom and liberty were just causes and so worth the sacrifice. However, she was aware that she had not lived through the experience that the doctor and other residents of the town had and so let the point go, not wanting to offend or argue with this kind man.

At supper that evening he told her what he was planning for them. They would need to be ready to move early in the morning, if indeed Marner was ready to move; if not then he would surely be fit by the following day. “The next train station down the line towards Caen is at a small town named Conches-en-Ouche. I made some enquiries by telephone today and checked: trains will be running westwards from Conches from tomorrow onwards, even though Evreux will take some days to become operational again. But better still for you, there is a spur line from Conches that goes to Rennes, via l’Aigle. It will take you more directly towards Brittany than going via Caen. The train comes from Rennes and reaches Conches around midday, and then it makes the return journey in the afternoon. So we will get you to Conches to meet that train.”

“How far away is this town and how will we get there?”

“It is approximately twenty kilometres. For transport, I have arranged for you to be taken by one of the local ambulances. The one that I have contacted was chosen simply because he is a total profiteer.  He has no particular sympathies or allegiance, his only motivation is money, no questions asked. In any case, I gave him the story that your officer needs to get to Caen as quickly as possible for treatment. That can be the story that you can use for any security checks too. With your identity papers you will be fine; just say that your travel permit was lost in the bombing. I will wrap him up in plenty of bandages to make it look convincing; you can discard them when the ambulance drops you off at Conches, or even keep them as your cover story for the rest of your journey.”

Lemele sat and looked at the doctor, deeply touched that he had taken her so quickly into his trust and even gone out of his way to help them. She smiled and thanked him, hoping that the warmth of it conveyed her gratitude. He waved it away. “Just promise me that you will keep doing ‘the right thing’, as you called it.”

“Always.”

Chapter Thirty Four

At eight o’clock the next morning they were ready to go. Marner had been woken an hour earlier and checked over by Corneille, who declared him fit to travel. “He is going to suffer from some dizziness for a few days, maybe also headaches and nausea too. His hearing is mostly returned, but he will still have some ringing in the ears,” he advised Lemele. “Do not worry; such side-effects are to be expected after that type of injury. But if he shows any signs of seizures or convulsions, then you must get him to professional medical care as soon as possible.”

She found Marner dressed and sitting on the table in the surgery. He had a bandage wrapped around the entirety of his head above the eyes and another around his neck. Fortunately she knew that this was only for show since the effect was, as intended, quite dramatic.

“Glad to see that you’re feeling better,” she smiled, giving his arm a squeeze.

“I am, mostly. The world still tilts and turns a bit and I’ve got a terrible noise in my head. What happened?  The doctor told me that I was injured in an air raid?”

“You mean you don’t remember?” she asked, incredulous.

He shook his head but stopped immediately, wincing and screwing up his eyes, “Ow! Ouch! I really must not do that. No, I don’t remember it. I recall us leaving Paris on the train, and that we were going to Brittany after Graf. But nothing after we left Paris.”

“Well, there’s not much to tell other than that we got caught up in an attack on the railway station, exactly as the doctor said. Oh yes, you saved my life again.”  She gave his arm another squeeze. “The good news is that we are getting under way again this morning. If you are feeling up to it.”

He was about to nod but then thought better of it. “Yes. We need to keep moving.”

Lemele was visibly taken aback when they helped Marner outside to the waiting ambulance and she discovered that it was horse-drawn, not motorised. Corneille saw her look and explained, “Now you understand why you had to be up so early for a twenty kilometre journey. The Germans may have motorised vehicles and the fuel to run them, but the rest of us have regressed half a century, back to the age of the humble horse. The only people getting rich out of this war are the black marketeers and the horse traders.”

They helped Marner up into the covered cab in the back of the buggy. There was only a wooden platform, wide enough for two patients to lie side by side. Lemele went back to the gate with Corneille to say goodbye and to thank him again, reaching up on tiptoes to peck him on his grey bristly cheek. The doctor wished her good luck. “And do come back when all this is over and let me know how it turned out.”

As they set off into the heart of the town, which they had to negotiate to reach the road to Conches, Marner flopped down flat on his back. Lemele was instantly concerned, but he reassured her that it was simply the rocking of the buggy that was making him dizzy.

There were a few market stalls open on the cleared land that would once have been shops in the busy centre. Beyond the dusty rutted ground she could see the town hall which was unscathed, although the beautiful Norman cathedral had suffered heavy damage, windows obliterated and stumps of flying buttresses hanging suspended in mid-air. She was surprised to see people already queuing at this early hour for the few muddy early season vegetables that were on sale in the market. The clothes of the town’s inhabitants were shabbier than what she was accustomed to seeing in Paris. Everyone was carrying bags and baskets, ready to take advantage of whatever they might find on sale today.

As they left the town centre, order and intact houses resumed, albeit with a few blasted sites of rubble amongst them. Beyond the town limits there was a startling transition from the war-ravaged town to a green and peaceful idyll that showed no evidence of destruction and conflict. The dwellings dwindled to occasional farm buildings in the steep sided valley as the road followed the winding course of the river. Lemele remembered from her school geography lessons that this eastern half of Normandy was actually a high, flat plateau through which several major rivers such as the Seine and its tributaries had carved their courses into the soft chalk. The valleys had been settled by the Romans and then centuries later ravaged by the Vikings sailing their drakkar long ships up the rivers in search of new territory, even as far as Paris . The very name ‘Normandy’ was derived from the word
Northmanorum
that had been given to these Viking invaders who had subsequently settled in the region as mercenary armies under the pay of local lords.

Their driver, Monsieur Carrier, kept up an idle chatter that required no concentration or response from Lemele. It was mostly a long list of complaints about the privations of the war and the rationing, although he did not seem to be suffering too badly. He was a hugely fat and round man, with florid cheeks and lips. Physically he reminded her very much of the trumpet player Paul Emile who had been a regular in her husband’s band. When she had first met him, Paul Emile had happily described himself as being “as tall lying down as I am standing up” and he had been genuinely delighted when she had collapsed into hysterical laughter at this.

The rocking of the buggy and rhythmic clop of the horse’s hooves, Carrier’s voice and the trilling of birds in the trees lulled her. She was reassured that Marner was resting calmly in the back, perhaps sleeping. Two hours passed with just the sight of a few small, dusty villages and run-down farms to distract her. As they drew within a few kilometres of Conches the sound of explosions started and she quickly spotted the planes flying at high altitude to the west. She turned to Carrier to ask him but he had anticipated her question. “Do not worry; it is the turn of the airfield at Conches today. It is easy to tell; they stay high up when they bomb the airfields and they fly in low and fast if they are attacking the trains or the station.”

At the edge of the town they were obliged to stop at a road-block. The soldiers accepted without question the word of Carrier, with whom they were clearly familiar. They passed through the centre of the town that seemed from another era, streets of old timbered buildings and the crumbling stone remains of the twelfth century castle on its raised motte that harked back to ancient, feudal times.

At the station their buggy was waved around the side, leading them directly to the platform. This avoided the requirement of having to pass through another paper check, even the need to buy tickets. When they pulled to a standstill, Lemele discreetly passed the agreed sum of money to Carrier, who transferred it instantly and expertly to some unseen pocket in his voluminous linen jacket. Marner was awake and seemed okay, but needed to be helped down onto the ground and then to a bench on the platform.

The train from Rennes had just arrived at the station and was idly belching steam onto the platform. It would not be leaving on the return journey for another forty minutes, giving Lemele time to go in search of a boulangerie that Carrier had directed her to. When she returned she found Marner lying on the bench asleep and had to shake him a few times to rouse him. Having been startled awake, he was momentarily confused about where he was and what was going on, made worse by an attack of dizziness when he tried to sit up abruptly. Lemele was reconsidering the wisdom of travelling so soon; however, once he was settled into an upright position and had calmed down, he reassured her that he was okay and that it was imperative that they keep up their progress.