The Black Baroness (36 page)

He arrived at the Admiralty Building punctually but his temper was not improved by the fact that he was left to kick his heels in a bare waiting-room for two and a quarter hours. At last a naval Petty Officer took him down to the dock and on board a destroyer where a genial Lieutenant-Commander received him and installed him in the wardroom with the casual invitation to order anything that he wanted from the steward. At 11.10 the destroyer put to sea.

After a little he dozed to the hiss of the water rushing past her portholes and to the monotonous whirr of the turbines. At one o’clock two officers came in so he roused up, drank pink gins with them and discussed the
Blitzkrieg
. They did not stay long and when they had gone he took another cat-nap. At a quarter to four the steward brought him bacon and eggs, toast, marmalade, and coffee. Soon after he had completed his meal the ship swung round in a wide curve and on looking out of one of the portholes he saw harbour lights paling in the dawn. Ten minutes later, having thanked his hosts, he was on the quayside at Ostend.

A passport officer gave him the latest news. The Belgian Army was fighting splendidly in the north and the British were holding the German attacks in the centre. The situation further south, however, gave cause for anxiety as the French Armies in the neighbourhood of Sedan were giving up more and more ground and seemed quite incapable of holding the terrific German attacks which were being launched against them.

Even at that hour the quayside was a bustle of activity. Hundreds of Belgian refugees were waiting to get away in the ships that were sailing for England or France. Among them moved many khaki figures, French and British officers and details who during these past few days had been making all the innumerable arrangements necessary for converting Ostend into a new forward base for the Allied Armies. Just as Gregory was passing out he heard his name called and turned to find that he was being hailed by a Guards Captain of his acquaintance, one ‘Peachie’ Fostoun.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ grinned Peachie.

‘Same as you, presumably,’ Gregory grunted amiably; ‘only I have somewhat more subtle methods of waging war. Have
you just come down from the line, or have they made you a permanent base wallah?’

‘They wouldn’t dare.’ Peachie flicked open his cigarette-case. ‘I graciously consented to come down to arrange the Brigades’ supply of caviare, but I’m going up again in about an hour’s time.’

As it was still technically before dawn Gregory managed to raise a laugh. ‘Don’t tell me that the Army has at last gone in for code words, otherwise for “caviare” I shall write in reinforcements.’

‘Have it which way you like,’ Peachie shrugged.

‘How are things going?’ asked Gregory.

‘They’re lousy. This Fifth Column stuff would take the grin off the face of a clown in a pantomime. When we went into Belgium on Friday morning everything was grand; in every village the populace was waiting to give us the big hand. They chucked cigarettes and chocolate at us by the bucketful and at every halt the women kissed the troops until you couldn’t see their mouths for lipstick, but by nightfall things weren’t quite so rosy. There was still a hundred miles between us and the Germans but all sorts of nasty low-down tikes began to snipe us from the house-tops. Some of them even chucked hand-grenades in the path of our Bren gun-carriers, from the woods through which we were passing, and we began to think that it wasn’t quite the sort of war that we had bargained for.

‘The following day things became really unpleasant. German parachute-troops started to float down out of the sky by the hundred; the nearest ones provided good sport for some of our better marksmen with their Brens but the devils came over in such numbers that we couldn’t account for one-tenth of them. Then, apparently, the Boche started landing troop-carriers with horrid little howitzers and while the troops were proceeding along the road soulfully singing “Little Sir Echo, Hullo! Hullo!” you could never tell from one moment to the next when one of these things would start blazing off from a farmyard or behind a haystack.’

Gregory nodded sympathetically and the garrulous Peachie went on:

‘I don’t mind telling you, it got on our nerves a bit as, after all, it wasn’t like real war at all, but just a sort of dirty assassination party. The further we went, the worse it got, until every time a young woman threw us a bunch of flowers we ducked as
though there was a Mills bomb concealed in it; but at least it had one good effect—it made the men so angry that they were screaming mad to get at the Jerries.

‘By Monday we’d contacted the enemy, and you can take my word for it that once the party started it was war with the lid off. We hardly saw a German but they came over in their tanks by the train-load. We held the tanks all right, but the thing that is a bit shattering is their Air Force. Heaven knows what’s happened to ours—we’ve hardly seen a British plane—but Goering’s chaps are as numerous as grouse in August. The moment one has held a tank attack they come hurtling down out of the sky to play merry hell with their bombs; and they’re not content with that, either; if they see a trace of movement they let fly with their machine-guns. It seems to me as though they are using dive-bombers for artillery. Anyhow, it makes it devilish difficult to hold on to any one position for any length of time; and if one gets a lot of casualties which necessitate a retirement their tanks immediately come on again; added to which, with all this trouble going on behind the lines one never knows when one’s going to be shot in the back. It’s not at all like any war that we’ve been taught to anticipate.’

‘Naturally,’ said Gregory; ‘since you’re a quarter of a century behind the times. Never mind, my young fellow-me-lad, we can be quite certain that the good old British spirit will stand up to the strain. After all, surely you don’t expect modern equipment and modern training. That would be letting the old school down and asking much too much of your tutors.’

‘We shall manage somehow,’ said Peachie, a trifle huffily.

‘Of course you will,’ Gregory beamed. ‘Anyhow, the best of luck! I’ve got to get along to the station.’

‘Where are you off to?’ Peachie inquired.

‘Brussels.’

‘Have you a special permit?’

‘No. I didn’t know that one was required.’

‘It is; and it would take you days to get one. We’re doing our best to make the battlefronts a closed area. You can come out, and welcome, but you can’t get in unless you prove that you’re Winston Churchill or Anthony Eden.’

‘That’s awkward; I’ve got very urgent reasons for wanting to get back to Brussels.’

‘Well, you won’t—I’ll bet you a pony. Unless …’ Peachie hesitated. ‘I suppose you really are doing a job of work?’

‘Sure thing,’ Gregory nodded. ‘I’m not wearing my beard or my rubber-soled shoes at the moment but I’ve got the hell of a sting in my tail for all that.’

‘In that case I could get you through by giving you a lift in my car. I shall have done all I can here in another couple of hours, then I’m going straight back. Meet me in the lounge of the Splendide at seven o’clock.’

‘Thanks, Peachie, that’s darned good of you; and, joking apart, I am helping a bit to push the old boat along.’

As Peachie Fostoun hurried off Gregory made his way to the great luxury hotel on the sea-front. For him it called up pleasant memories of a week he had spent there long ago with a lady who had loved him very dearly and whom at that time he had considered to be the most desirable among all women; a happy state of affairs for two young people who with one war then only a memory, and another not even visualised as a remote possibility, had been able to devote themselves without let or hindrance to the entirely engrossing subject of each other.

In spite of the early hour the hotel was as busy as if it were mid-morning on a day in race week. There had been three air-raids on Ostend that night so many people had come down from their rooms to sit in the lounge and their number was constantly being added to by refugees arriving from Brussels, which somewhat perturbed Gregory.

When Peachie turned up they went into the bar to have one for the road and Gregory asked: ‘What is the latest authentic information? Is there any likelihood of Brussels falling within the next twelve hours?’

Peachie shrugged. ‘We’re not actually trampling our way over the German dead to victory, but it’s quite fair to say that we’re holding our own. The Boche gave Louvain hell yesterday, but it didn’t get them anywhere. Now the fight is on our men are behaving magnificently and you can sneer at the equipment as much as you like, but such as it is, we’ve got no complaints about it. Maybe we haven’t gangster weapons like the Jerries but our stuff’s better quality and we’ve already found that when our lads get face to face with the enemy they’re worth three to one of them every time. I don’t think there’s the least likelihood of a withdrawal to Brussels unless it’s suddenly made necessary by either of our flanks caving in, and the Belgians are putting up a splendid show in the north.’

No papers were available but a British Naval Officer who was in the bar told them that things were reported to have taken a turn for the better. Apparently a telegram from the Generals Giraud and Huntziger to Monsieur Reynaud had been published and in it the two commanders who were responsible for the Sedan area, where the Germans had broken through, stated categorically that they were getting the situation in their sectors under control. With this distinctly cheering item of information Gregory and Peachie went out to the car, which Peachie was driving himself, and set off.

Bruges was no great distance, and normally they should have reached it in less than three-quarters of an hour, but an unending stream of traffic moving towards the coast made a normal speed impossible, so it took them double that time. From Bruges they went on along the straight, poplar-fringed road towards Ghent, but their pace came down to a crawl as in addition to the refugee column, which occupied more than half the road, they now encountered a great number of breakdowns which, with the west-bound traffic moving round them, blocked the road entirely. They had expected to be in Brussels by lunch-time but it was one o’clock when they entered Ghent. As they had already been on the road for over five hours’ most exasperating driving they pulled up at a restaurant on the Place d’Armes to snatch a quick meal. Just after they had given their order a Major, who was a friend of Peachie’s, came in and they asked him to join them.

The Major took a by no means cheerful view of things and, as he was a G.S.O.2, attached to the Second Corps, his information could be considered as authentic as any that could be secured in the sea of rumours that were flying round. He said that the Germans had surprised both the French and the British by the direction of their thrust, the weight of their tanks and the numbers of their aircraft. Apparently the Meuse sector had now become a deep bulge and a number of German armoured columns were right through, having penetrated the whole depth of the fortified zone at the western end of the Maginot Line. Most alarming of all, this threat to the southern flank of the Allied Armies operating in Belgium had become so serious that an order for their withdrawal had been issued early that morning and the British were now retiring to fresh positions west of Brussels.

Greatly perturbed by this new and disconcerting possibility
that the Germans might be in Brussels before him Gregory urged haste on Peachie and having bolted their meal they hurried back to the car; but the time saved proved of little value as outside Ghent their pace came down to a positive crawl. Evidently the news that the capital was to be abandoned had sent half a million Belgians scurrying out of it along the roads to the west and south, so that the procession of refugees had new swollen to a triple line of crawling vehicles and patiently-plodding people. In vain Peachie pounded at his Klaxon while Gregory cursed and swore. The sullen-looking, sad-eyed crowds either would not or could not get out of the way and the long, hot afternoon developed into a kind of treadmill which sometimes afflicts one in a dream, where one is striving very hard to get somewhere but finds that one’s legs will not obey one’s will. Nevertheless, mile by mile they made gradual headway, reaching Alost at six o’clock. They snatched a drink at the crowded hostelry there then pressed on again by the evening light.

Now they were well within the sound of the guns and occasionally a German plane came over to unload its bombs on railway sidings or the villages through which they passed. By eight o’clock they were within six miles of Brussels and met the first of the retiring troops. All day, here and there in the endless procession, they had seen cars, ambulances and supply-wagons which belonged to the French and British Armies, but this group of weary, dust-covered men had a totally different appearance; they had obviously been in the thick of it, and Peachie pulled up to ask an officer if he could give him any particulars of his own unit.

The officer said that he had not run across the Guards Brigade for several days. He knew nothing of the general situation as he and his men had been ordered out of the line only that morning, after three days’ very hard fighting, as they thought to rest; but they had no sooner reached the billets allotted to them at Nosseghem than they had been ordered out again with new instructions to retire through Brussels to Assche. ‘Hence,’ he added with a smile, ‘our rather part-worn appearance; it’s four days since we’ve had a chance to clean up.’

From that point on they passed many units of the B.E.F. Some, which had borne the brunt of the early fighting, looked pretty war-worn, while others were spick and span, being units of reserve divisions that had not yet been thrown into the battle.
As the twilight deepened the numbers of refugees gradually lessened, until the road became almost entirely occupied by the military. Peachie was now pulling up at every hundred yards or so to ask passing officers if they knew the whereabouts of his unit and at last on a crossroad, among a group of officers who were standing there studying their maps, he saw his own Colonel.