Something Dangerous (Spoils of Time 02) (60 page)

It was 20 May.

‘These people are pathetic,’ said Celia scornfully. ‘Can you imagine our people behaving like this? Queen Wilhelmina, the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, the government of Belgium, all running away, going into exile. While our Queen won’t even send her own children away, says they must all stay with the King, and quite right too. They’re an example to us all, the royal family. We’re lucky to have them: them and Churchill of course.’

Oliver looked at her. She read the look.

‘I know. I know, Oliver. You don’t have to say anything.’

‘I wasn’t going to. Except that I see Tom Mosley has been imprisoned.’

‘Yes,’ she said and her voice was low. ‘Yes. I know. Yesterday. It was this article in
Action
, that did it, I’ve got it here, he offered to lead people into peace by cooperation. Well, prison is where he should be. It’s appalling. Terrifying. And you know they say the Duke of Windsor was of the same mind. Which is worse, supposing he were still King.’

‘Well, we must all thank God that he is not. Tell me what does your friend Lord Arden think about it all now?’

‘Oh—’ she looked back intently at the magazine, ‘I don’t really know, Oliver. I haven’t spoken to him for months.’

‘I see,’ said Oliver.

It was 23 May.

‘Do you – do you think Giles might be there?’ said Helena.

She was working at Guys Hospital and had gone into Lyttons on her way home, to see if Celia or Oliver had any news, her fear for him overcoming any other emotion; they were in Celia’s office, staring at the paper, at photographs of men on the beach at Dunkirk – an aerial photograph, the men looking like so many flies. Defenceless flies. Being dive-bombed by German planes. The report was of the men cut off from the rear, of a long route march from Belgium, of abandoned vehicles, of the absolute unthinkable, the British Army in defeat.

‘I don’t know,’ said Celia and she did another equally unthinkable thing, and gripped Helena’s hand. ‘I suppose so, yes.’

It was 27 May.

It was several months before Helena heard the full story of Giles’s experiences at Dunkirk; not from him, he gave her a rather modestly brief account, but from one of his men. In one of life’s more determined coincidences Private Collins had arrived at Guys with a head injury; he was in one of the wards she worked on with her Red Cross trolley, a nice young man, and as he was there rather a long time, she got to know him. Once he had recovered from the shock of the coincidence – ‘Blow me down, that is, well, fancy you being Private Lytton’s wife, blow me down, I can’t ruddy believe it’ – he gave her in close detail the story of the four dreadful days they had spent there.

‘I don’t know what we’d have done without your husband, Lits we used to call him, and that’s the truth. Bloody marvellous he was, pardon my French, Mrs Lytton. Him and Sergeant Collingham kept us all sane. You know Sergeant Collingham, do you Mrs Lytton?’

‘I do now, yes,’ said Helena.

It was Tom Collingham, one of the farmboys at Ashingham whom Giles had played with as a child, and who had later taught him to shoot rabbits, who had done much to ease his way into the difficult world of being an ex-Etonian private in the Wiltshires at the beginning of the war.

‘Commanding officer, absolutely ruddy useless, young chap, one of the real toffs, still wet behind the ears, not much older than me. No end of airs and graces we had from him. OK when things was all right, used to come and give us pep talks, go on about king and country and all that baloney, but when it all began to go wrong – well, worse than blinking useless he was. I mean your husband, Mrs Lytton, obviously he’s a gentleman, what he was doing as a private, heaven only knows, but we didn’t get none of that from him. Things had been pretty bad for days, while we were still supposed to be on the attack, we got the sense of no one knowing what they were doing, just wandering about, we seemed to be. Lits was pretty good then, Mrs Lytton, always cheerful, always brave, couple of times I saw him really taking one of the German soldiers on, face to face. Anyway, then came the order to abandon our vehicles and damage our weapons and dump them in the canal. We were retreating and it was bloody awful I can tell you. Pardon my French again—’

‘Corporal, I don’t mind,’ said Helena gently.

‘Well, anyway, we were marching at night, not knowing where we were going, and morale was dreadful, you can imagine. A lot of the platoons seemed to have lost it altogether, no sense of order, but not ours. Sergeant Collingham was always there with us, bullying us if needs be, keeping us in line, talking to us, listening to us, making sure we ate what there was, telling us not to think about the tanks we could hear – we never knew if they was enemy or ours, you see. And your husband was one of the most cheerful, never down, used to organise little sing-songs, that sort of thing.’

‘Yes, I see.’

‘When we got to the beaches – well it was hell. Not too strong a word, hell. The fire, the smoke, the noise, the noise of the planes and the bombs, men being hit, screaming with pain, nowhere to hide, just nowhere except in the sand and a fat lot of good that did. And we was hungry and thirsty too, after a bit. And the CO, he just went to bloody pieces. Started drinking, he was drunk all the four days, wandering about, talking rubbish. And our captain wasn’t much better, we found ’im sitting in the sand dunes, hugging his teddy bear, crying. Well, Sergeant Collingham wasn’t having that.

‘“That’s not doing anyone any good, sir,” was all he said, but he really lost his temper, it was the only time I ever saw him do that. “Pull yourself together, sir,” he said, and he snatched the teddy bear from him and hurled it away. It went on for days, four days we was there, I can’t tell you what it was like; no food, precious little water, you heard awful stories of soldiers shooting one another for water; wouldn’t have happened in our platoon, I can tell you. Each night, we’d ask Lits to organise one of his sing-songs, and after it we’d say the Lord’s Prayer. That was him started that, he was just saying it to himself quite quietly one night and a couple of us joined in, and after that it got to be quite a habit.

‘Another time I saw him with one of the men, he was was real bad, poor chap, had the shakes and he sat down really gentle with him, put his arm round him and talked to him like he was his mother or something.’

‘His mother?’ said Helena. ‘Well, good heavens.’

‘Anyway, finally it was our turn. You had to line up on the beach then start wading out to the little boats. We was so tired, so hungry, you can’t think. And then there was a lot of fighting over those little boats, people trying to get too many in each one. Sergeant Collingham wasn’t having any of that of course: “You try that once more,” he said to one chap, who was pushing to the front, “and it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

‘Your husband was standing right by him, waiting for his turn. It was awful standing there, you were being shot at and bombed all the time, and some of the men were so tired they couldn’t even climb in the boats, had to be heaved in, and that was happening out at sea as well, the men were too weak to climb up the ropes into the big boats, and their clothes were so heavy with the water, they just fell down again. Anyway, just as we was nearly all in, into our little boat, a Stuka comes and strafes the beach. Sergeant Collingham got hit in the shoulder with a bit of shrapnel and goes under the water; he’d have drowned if it hadn’t been for Lits. Still under fire, and weighed down with his rifle and pack, he dives under the water and drags Sergeant Collingham to the surface, heaves him into the boat in front of him, stands there calm and patient as anything while they settle him as best they can before getting in himself. I did hear he was recommended for the Military Medal for that; bloody shame he didn’t get it. There’s no justice in war, I can tell you that. But you should be real proud of him, Mrs Lytton, really proud.’

‘I am,’ said Helena, ‘really very proud.’

Giles was still in England; the regiment had been posted to Salisbury to retrain. He had been made up to Corporal to his immense pride, and was involved in training the new troops; that meant more to him than his (unsuccessful) recommendation for the Military Medal.

‘Very sorry about that, Lytton,’ his commanding officer had said, ‘you should have got it. Typical of those bloody desk wallahs in London. Anyway, all the Dunkirk veterans think no end of you. Your day will come, I’m sure of it. Well done.’

When he came home now on leave, he was different, Helena noticed; less diffident, calmer, more authoritative even. She often reflected that if he had got his commission, he would have found it hard to cope, certainly at first, and the vicious circle of failure and fear of failure would have gone on. Their marriage was much better too; she felt a new admiration and respect for him.

How very ironic life was.

‘Venetia? Venetia, it’s me, Adele.’

‘Adele – oh, God, are you all right, what’s happening over there, why don’t you come home, please, please Dell, come home while you can—’

‘I’m fine. I’m sorry I haven’t phoned much lately, but it’s so difficult, even to book a call, and you have to wait hours and then there are terrible delays on the line. This is awfully crackly, can you hear me?’

‘Pretty well. Now will you come home?’

‘No, I can’t. Honestly, I’m fine. Don’t believe any of the nonsense you hear. Paris is going on just the same, it’s perfectly peaceful, a few people are leaving, well quite a lot actually, but everyone says it’s madness, they don’t know where they’re going or why—’

‘But Adele, you’d know, you’d be coming home to England.’

‘Not very safe there from all accounts. Is Giles all right, do you know? And Kit?’

‘Both fine. Giles was at Dunkirk, but he was all right, Kit’s flying Spitfires and is winning the war single-handed.’

‘And Boy?’

‘Somewhere in Scotland. Adele please – what does Luc say, surely he wants you out of Paris—’

‘He – did seem a bit more keen. But the thing is, Venetia, we’re getting on so much better, everything’s fine, I just don’t want to leave him or take the children away. I know it’s hard for you to understand, but this is my home now and I honestly feel perfectly safe.’

‘But it wouldn’t be for ever. Just till the war’s over. What’s the official story on the war, what are you advised to do?’

‘There isn’t an official story. There isn’t a story at all. That’s what makes us all feel so calm. The news bulletins are all the same, nothing to worry about, the Army’s holding its own. Hallo, hallo—’

‘Yes, I’m still here.’

‘It’s a bit crackly. Might get cut off. But I’m sure the Government would warn us if there was a real danger. They’re all still here, you know. I wish you could see Paris, it’s all so normal, nothing’s changed, well except for a few sandbags. Everyone’s just getting on with their lives. Hallo – hallo! It’s going. Give my love to everyone, don’t worry, I’ll be—’

The line went dead; Venetia burst into tears.

‘
Mignonne
, I want you to go home. Very, very much. While it is still possible. The railways are becoming very crowded, I want you and the children to be safe.’

‘Luc, it’s absurd. You sound like Venetia, I managed to speak to her today. They’re all fine, Giles was—’

‘Adele, I want you to go. I am telling you, as your husband, that you are to go. I am going to get some tickets today—’

‘Luc, no. Anyway, I’m sure it’s too late, I’d never get across the Channel.’

‘Not from Calais, no, you are right. But I could send you down to Bordeaux, there are still ships going from there.’

‘Luc, have you looked at the railway stations recently? It’s appalling, the battle every day for trains. Look, I’m happy here with you. I don’t want to go.’ She kissed him. ‘Don’t you understand? You should be pleased. Now stop fussing. It’s such a lovely day. I shall take the children to the park or the river, have a picnic. Try to come home early, and we can go out for a walk, all of us.’

It was another perfect day. Paris was certainly very agreeable; there was far less traffic than usual, the roads were quiet.

Adele took the children for their picnic in the Luxembourg Gardens, wandered about the quiet streets, did some shopping and then went home again. By half past five both children were tired, ready for bed; it didn’t look as if the walk
en famille
was likely to take place. Never mind; perhaps she and Luc would be able to go on their own. That would be even more of a treat. She would ask Mme André if she would come up, just for an hour.

It was a Friday; a good night for a drink. Friday, 7 June.

Luc was tired, very hot and extremely anxious. His life, always so orderly, had suddenly spun out of control. There was a very nasty war in Europe, the enemy was headed by a madman, and an anti-semitic madman at that, he had insufficient money, a wife who claimed she was pregnant, and a mistress with two children. Wherever he looked he was trapped. Whatever he did he was doomed.

Work was a nightmare too; Paris might still be buying books, but the rest of France was most certainly not. Constantine’s profits were nonexistent, its income decimated. Staff had been warned of redundancies. Not the directors – yet. But it seemed possible that in the foreseeable future he wouldn’t even have a job.

He sighed, pacing the office; he had done no work for days.

If only, if only Adele had been less loyal, less courageous, had shown less of the damn British spirit. Then he could have got rid of her at least; she and the children would be safe, he could concentrate on Suzette and his problems with her.

Pregnant: how could she have done that to him? He had no doubt that it had been deliberate, the oldest trap in the book. He wasn’t sure that he believed her, he was waiting for confirmation from the doctor. But if she was – he was a fool; an absolute fool.

Well, it had to be settled soon; he couldn’t go on like this. Maybe he could order Adele home, assert his authority. But – she was right. It was too late. The scenes every day – at the Gare du Nord and the Gare de Lyon were frightful, people fighting over seats, tickets, places; there were stories of children being separated from their parents, of old people being hurt in the crush, of women giving birth on the pavements. Her chances of getting even to Bordeaux were very slight. Maybe when this particular panic was over, he would be able to send her down to Bordeaux. And it would be over, most sensible people thought that. But—