The Old Vengeful (19 page)

“Not specifically. But he did agree with your father’s conclusion about them—that they weren’t included in the Decrés propaganda letter to Napoleon in the
Moniteur Universel
with the allegedly full list of successful British escapers down to September, but they
were
in the Lautenbourg Fortress in early August—and they
didn
’
t
turn up anywhere else thereafter, and weren’t listed anywhere else as having been recaptured or died of natural causes … He reckoned the French killed them right enough—he said that, apart from the conflicting stories the French told, sending them to Lautenbourg was suspicious in itself. Because no one had ever been sent there before, and no one ever was again. ‘Something fishy, but I don’t know what’ was his conclusion—and here’s our hotel—“ he swung the car under a narrow archway, through a passage, and into a tiny courtyard “—then we can have a
proper
session, once we’ve installed you—it’s all
quite
fascinating, Miss Loftus—I haven’t been involved in anything so absolutely
fascinating
in ages!” He turned to Elizabeth with an expression of disarmingly innocent enthusiasm. “There’s a sweet little café in the square—“

“We’re not going to sit in any cafe.” There was anything but an expression of innocent enthusiasm on Paul Mitchell’s face. “For any ‘proper session’.”

“No?” Aske took his disappointment philosophically. “Then what are we going to do?”

“I’ve got phone calls to make. You deal with the bags. And I want to be on the road in twenty minutes.” Paul sounded a bit like Father on one of his off days.

“And then where?” Aske’s obedience didn’t include total abasement.

“Wait and see,” said Paul rudely.

Twenty minutes later he seemed happier; or maybe he was beginning to regret being such a bear, decided Elizabeth.

“I’m sorry to push you like this, Elizabeth.” He tried to smile, and then looked past her and gave up the attempt. “Where’s that obnoxious fellow, for God’s sake?”

“Mr Aske is trying to get me a better room. He thinks the one I’ve got will be too noisy.” Enough was enough. “Why must you be so beastly to him? Has he ever done you any harm?”

“Not so far as I know—and he’s not going to get the chance, either.” He shrugged. “I hardly know him, actually.”

“You just dislike him on principle?”

“On several principles. I don’t fancy queers, for a start.”

“Queers?’

“God, Elizabeth! You’re not that innocent, surely?”

She flushed—she could feel the blood in her cheeks, pumping at treble pressure because she
was
that innocent, but also because that explained her own unformulated doubts, and finally because such naked prejudice embarrassed her.

“It isn’t a crime any more,” she said stiffly.

“No.”
More
’
s the pity
was implicit there. “I can see you’ve never been propositioned! But then you wouldn’t be, would you …” He sniffed derisively. “You’re safe.”

That was more hurtful than he intended. “No. I have never been propositioned.”

“I didn’t mean that, and you know it.” The hardness in his face broke up. “Damn it—if you want to be propositioned, just keep your door on the latch tonight—“

“No,
thank you!
”
snapped Elizabeth.

He ran his hand through his hair, suddenly not at all the Paul Mitchell she knew and didn’t understand. “Shit! I always get this wrong, don’t I! Frances, you
are
avenged!”

“Frances?”

“Doesn’t matter.” His face came together again. “I also dislike him
because
I don’t know him … and in this game, if you have someone there to cover your back, that’s not a comforting feeling. And I
also
dislike him because I associate him with someone I don’t trust— someone I
do
know. And birds of a feather—“ He stopped abruptly.

“Hullo there—sorry I’m late,” said Humphrey Aske. “I’ve got you an absolutely super room, Miss Loftus—quiet and comfortable—and a wonderful view across the old city.”

“Thank you, Mr Aske,” said Elizabeth, split disconcertingly down the middle between them. “I hope it wasn’t too difficult?”

He smiled at her. “Not at all, actually. I just got them to swop Dr Mitchell’s bag for yours. Nothing could be easier!” He turned to Paul. “Now, Dr Mitchell—which way?”

“South, across the N2 as best you can, on to the D967, Aske.” Paul embraced Aske’s enmity like a lover.

“You’ve been there before, then?”

Paul looked through him. “To the Chemin des Dames? Yes, I’ve been there before, Aske.”

Getting out and down from the old city of Laon, through the narrow streets, and down the winding hairpin road to the plain beneath, wasn’t so easy in the rush-hour; and crossing the N2 ring road was hair-raising, even though Humphrey Aske drove with relaxed excellence and courtesy; so the question on the tip of her tongue delayed itself until Aske repeated the first name on the road signs.

“Bruyeres-et-Montberault?”

“About twelve miles, straight on,” said Paul. “Then we cross the Chemin des Dames, and go down half a mile, to the British War Cemetery at Vendresse.”

“Why, Paul?” asked Elizabeth.

“Why what?” He was staring straight ahead. “Why the Chemin? Or why Vendresse?”

“Why…all of this?”

He stared ahead for a moment, without replying. “I like the cemetery at Vendresse. It’s only a little one, but it’s one of my favourites.”

“What a perfectly
macabre
thought—to have a favourite cemetery!” exclaimed Humphrey Aske. “You normally prefer the bigger ones?”

“And an interesting one, too.” Paul seemed not to have heard him. “Late summer 1914—and then late summer 1918—the two turning points. I’ll show you, Elizabeth.”

“But that simply can’t be the reason, Mitchell—just to show us something … of interest?” said Aske.

Elizabeth found herself wishing that he wouldn’t ask the questions which were uppermost in her own mind, instead of leaving the answers to the due process of Paul’s own reasoning.

“You ought to know the reason, damn it!” snapped Paul. “The only good cover is what’s true. I don’t usually fly to France—that was a mistake. We should have taken the hovercraft and the autoroute. But when I do come to the Aisne, this is what I do—and this is what I’m doing.”

“And what makes you think we need a cover?”

“That’s right, Paul,” Elizabeth agreed with Aske uneasily. “David Audley said we’d be safe over here.”

“And we
are
safe, Miss Loftus,” Aske reassured her. “Nobody can possibly know where we are, except those who need to know. So unless Dr Mitchell left your flight plan lying around—“

“The flight plan was doctored,” said Mitchell testily.

“Then no one knows. Because no one followed
me, I
assure you.” Aske giggled. “No one follows me when I don’t want to be followed, I promise you—not without my knowing, anyway … And, for the record, no one’s following me now.”

“The French know,” said Paul.

“Two or three
dim fonctionnaires
on a tin-pot air-strip half the size of my pocket-handkerchief? Oh, come on!”

“Don’t underestimate the French.”

“I don’t. I know they’ve got a smart computerised system for checking up on
mauvais sujets
who intrude into their privacy. But the great and good Dr Mitchell surely isn’t lumped in with visiting Libyan assassins, is he?” Aske paused. “Or is he?”

Paul said nothing.

“You don’t mean to say you’ve got a record here?” Aske appeared more amused than frightened. “In the line of duty, naturally—?”

“I am known here,” Paul came dangerously close to pomposity. “Both in the line of duty, as you put it, and in the line of military history. And that’s why we’re going to Vendresse—because if they do by any chance pick me up on their radar I want to be well dug-into that second line.”

“Ah … well
now
I’m with you!” Aske nodded. “So what are you doing in Champagne? I rather thought Picardy was your stamping ground—the Somme and the Hindenburg Line, and all those
awful
places?”

“This is where trench warfare started for the British—in September 1914, at the end of the battle of the Marne.”

“Indeed? And so what are
we
doing, then? We’re strictly 1812 experts … we don’t know anything that happened after the battle of Waterloo.”

“In my case I’ve got a typescript of unpublished material on the origins of trench warfare—it was the basis of the opening chapters in the Hindenburg Line book. If you both read that you’ll know enough.”

“How very jolly! All about lice and phosgene?” murmured Aske. “Well, that’s awfully clever of you—and we shall become experts on lice and phosgene, and gas gangrene and mud, Miss Loftus … did you hear that?”

It was six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, thought Elizabeth. The truth was that when men weren’t comrades they were children— and not-very-nice, potentially savage children too.

“Very clever … that ridge ahead must be your ‘Ladies’ highway’, Mitchell,” continued Aske, still mock-admiringly. “Except that we’re not actually here to study all those charming 1914 facts, we’re here to sort out something which occurred in 1812, or thereabouts. So … even allowing that you’re scared of the French … on account of heaven only knows what past misdeeds … we are rather going out of our way now, aren’t we? Or are we?”

“Just drive, Aske,” said Paul.

“ ‘Just drive’?” This time the mildness in Aske’s voice was paper-thin. “No … I know I said 1812 was fascinating … but don’t you think it’s about time you explained to me why it’s so important?”

At the best of times that would have been a bad question to put to Paul Mitchell, reflected Elizabeth. But just now, and coming from Aske, it was like a spark in the powder-magazine.

“Paul—“

“I know I’m only one of the
lesser
breeds, Mitchell—I know that
I
don’t have the confidence of the legendary Dr Audley … I’m only here to
do
for you … or die for you, as required, like a one-man Light Brigade, and you just point me towards the Russian guns.” Aske peered ahead. “And if this is your famous Chemin des Dames I must say that it’s rather a non-event…
But
I would prefer to be pointed at the right guns in the right century—even if it is the nineteenth century—“

“For Christ’s sake—shut up and drive!” spat Paul.

“There’s no call to be offensive—“

“Oh yes there is.” Cold rage almost choked Paul. “You are now driving, Aske—“ he spoke slowly and clearly “—across ground over which real men charged real guns … Germans and Frenchmen and British … and … if you make one more silly crack then that will be the end of this fascinating trip for you. Understood?”

This time Humphrey Aske said nothing, and Elizabeth cringed in her seat, all her own questions equally stifled not only by the order and the threat, but also by the suppressed passion with which both had been delivered, for all that they were camouflaged under clarity.

“Straight over the cross-roads,” said Paul tightly.

The road continued for a little way, then dropped and twisted down the southern slope of the ridge, affording her glimpses of a river valley, of fields and trees and distant roofs below.

“On the right there—you can pull in under the bank.” His voice was conversational again. “You come with me, Elizabeth—you stay with the car, Aske.”

It was, as he had said, quite a small cemetery, cut into the hillside out of the sloping fields: in size it was more like the little village churchyard in which Father lay, than the hecatombs of the war dead which she had seen in photographs; but there was no church, and the lines of identical tombstones were ordered with military precision, rank on rank up the slope, as in a well-kept garden.

Elizabeth followed Paul up the centre aisle, towards a small kiosk-like building which was open on the side facing them, having to trot to keep at his heels. When they reached it Paul opened a tiny metal door and drew out a book wrapped in a plastic envelope from the niche behind it. She watched him in silence as he pulled a biro from his inside pocket and signed the book, then offered both to her. “Name and date please, Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth studied the list, and was surprised to see how many names from this summer there were on the open pages—even from this same month, and several from this very day—who had found this place in the middle of nowhere, and this book.

And there was space for comment, too—

“
My grandpa brought me here, and told me about it
”
—

“
I was here in 1918, and I remember
”
—

But Paul had written nothing except the date and his name—plain
Paul Mitchell
—so Elizabeth had no stomach to do more than the same—plain
Elizabeth Loftus
.

“What about me, then?” said Humphrey Aske, from behind her.

Elizabeth looked towards Paul, quickly and fearfully. “Paul—“

“Yes, of course—“ he blinked just once, as though the late afternoon light was too strong for his eyes “—you
are
here, I suppose, so you must sign. You’re right.”

Humphrey Aske signed the book—just name and date—and meekly gave it back to Paul, who wrapped it up carefully and replaced it in its niche.

“Sometimes I get to be rather a pain,” said Aske simply.

“Yes.” Paul addressed the ranks below them. “And sometimes I fly off the handle, and particularly in places like this … Because everyone’s obsessive about something—“ he caught Elizabeth’s eye “—with your father it was the
Vengeful
…
but with me … someone once said to me, she said … ‘one minute it’s a field of cabbages, but with a machine-gun you can turn it into a field of honour with a single burst’.”

They walked down the aisle together, and it was only at the end of it that Paul spoke again.

“The stories are all here, but we haven’t time for them—the regiments and the names … they were older in 1914 than 1918— there’s even a general here, from 1918, who was younger then than I am now … two great British armies, so alike and yet so different—one so small, and the other huge—separated by four years of war, that’s all.” He shook his head. “But we’ve got to get on—“