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‘Lucky me.’
There was a shout from behind the sergeant. ‘Dawes, who is it? That French fella again? We could do with a drop more of that brandy he found us before.’
The sergeant half-turned. ‘No, sir, it’s not the French officer, sir. It’s a British officer, sir.’
The room was poorly lit, by the light of just two candles which burned in the necks of two empty wine bottles. It was a humble farmhouse, sparsely furnished and with little in the way of decoration save a single framed engraving and a small black wooden cross which hung above the fireplace in which the miserable remains of an attempt at a fire burned. Moving aside, the sergeant revealed a dining table laid for dinner for one, on the opposite side of which was seated a British officer. Judging from the three pips and a crown at his shoulder, he was a brigadier.
He smiled at Lamb. ‘I say, hello. You’re one of us. Who are you?’
Before replying, Lamb took in the sight before him. Even in his youth as a subaltern on the Somme and in Paschendaele, Brigadier Julian Meadows, ‘Dewy Meadows’ to his chums, had never been what one might have called a small man, and what Lamb had presumed might be the universal hardships of soldiering over the past few weeks appeared to have had little effect upon a figure happily formed by years of lunches with similarly clubable fellows and which still swelled the fabric of his cleverly tailored Savile Row service dress. His corpulent form was topped off by an almost bald head, save for a circlet of bright white hair at the temples and a similarly white moustache which splayed out from his top lip. The brigadier burped but managed to suppress the noise and dabbed at his moustache.
‘Lieutenant Peter Lamb, sir, North Kents. 6th Brigade. Were trying to get back to our unit.’
The man looked at him in surprise. ‘You’re adrift, then?’
‘Sir.’
‘Same here, my boy. My driver took a wrong turn and we’ve ended up in this midden of a place. Still, the fodder’s not at all bad. My driver managed all this.’ He waved his hand expansively over the table which, Lamb now noticed, was laid with ham, cooked meat, wine, brandy and half a roast chicken. ‘Bloody good cook. Bloody rotten driver. I suppose you realise where we are?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Funny really. Particularly with the Frogs here too. Like the old days, eh?’
‘Yes, sir. It must be. I wonder if you’d have any idea, sir, where the rest of my brigade might have got to?’
The man looked at him. ‘What? No, can’t say that I have. You’d be best to keep going north. Probably catch up with them somewhere.’
‘Catch up with them?’
‘Yes, generally the entire army’s heading north. New plan. Don’t suppose you’ve heard. Frogs seem to be about to throw in the towel. Never did have any staying power. Not after the last lot.’
He looked closely at Lamb. ‘Too young for that, I suppose. Weren’t you?’
‘Yes, sir. But my father served. In the Dardanelles.’
‘Dardanelles. That wasn’t a war, man. Bloody holiday compared to the Western Front. This is where we fought in hell. Right here. In Belgium. Mud and blood, my boy. Mud and blood.’
Stifling his anger, Lamb replied, ‘Yes, sir, I believe it was hell here.’
The brigadier nodded sagaciously, pleased that the young man appeared to agree with his assertion.
‘Yes. Quite awful. I’m heading west myself. Pressing engagement. In fact I wonder whether you couldn’t be of some use to me. I’ve a message here from my opposite number on the French staff which simply must get to GHQ soonest. You couldn’t oblige and ensure it gets there? Just give it to the senior officer of whichever regiment or brigade HQ you next encounter. He’ll do the rest, I’m sure. That’s how it works, you see.’
Lamb was dumbstruck. A prior engagement? The man was talking as if he were late for a regimental dinner. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if you were to take it yourself, sir?’
‘Nonsense, man. I’m a Brigadier. Better things to do than deliver messages.’
‘But it was given into your hand by the French, sir.’
The officer suddenly grew very serious. ‘Precisely. And now I’m giving it into your hand, Lieutenant. Now you get it to GHQ by whatever means you find necessary. That’s an order.’
‘Sir.’
‘Any more of that claret?’
‘Right away, sir.’
The brigadier smiled at Lamb. ‘Care for a drink?’
‘Don’t think I should, sir. Do you?’
‘Nonsense. Course you should. All officers should drink, what? Should all be able to drink and to get drunk. But not violent. D’you see? That’s for the men. Have a drink, Lamb.’
And so Lamb sat down at the table and had a drink with the brigadier and made small talk. They spoke of home and of cricket and the brigadier talked of hunting in Somerset and racing at Newmarket and of his London club in St James’s which had ruined its windows with ghastly blackout blinds and he told Lamb how hard it was now to get really good Cognac, and at length after his second glass of wine Lamb managed to persuade the brigadier that his presence really was needed with the platoon and after an interminable goodbye left the house and pulled the door closed behind him.
Lamb stood and breathed in deeply. After the fug of the room the night air was cool and sweet and he felt suddenly alive. He began to walk south, back towards the battlefield.
At the crossroads the French lieutenant and his men were chatting and laughing. One of them had cranked up a gramophone and a recent popular song by Jean Sablon cut through the night:
J’attendrai, le jour et la nuit, j’attendrai toujours ton retour.
J’attendrai, car l’oiseau qui s’enfuit vient chercher l’oubli, dans son nid, Le temps passe et court en battant tristement dans mon coeur si lourd
Et pourtant, j’attendrai ton retour.
Walking to a bank of the sunken road, Lamb saw in the moonlight the silhouette of a British tin hat and recognised at once the angular profile beneath it. ‘Evening, Tapley.’
The man who was standing sentry swiftly extinguished his cigarette. ‘And a fine one, sir. Have you seen the stars?’
Lamb looked up. It was cloudless and the stars twinkled in their heaven as they always had. He spotted the Plough and Orion’s Belt and felt comforted – a boy once again by his father’s side, a boy in pyjamas, beneath the night sky in Kent, staring in wonder and pride as his father named the constellations.
‘Yes, I can see them. Not long till you’re relieved, is it? Then I should try and get some sleep, Tapley. We’ve a long march tomorrow, and who knows where the enemy are.’
The man nodded and smiled at him and it occurred to him that part of his role was that of a father, looking after his family of men, adrift in France, looking to him for leadership and inspiration.
They were like Wellington’s men the night before Waterloo, he had decided, retreating up this dirt road. Then on the very next day the great general had turned the tables on his arch enemy with a famous victory. But Lamb suspected that there would be no such chance for his men, or for his army. There would be no second Waterloo. He had been surprised by the attitude of the French officer to the fate of his country and wondered whether it was widespread. How, he wondered, could a nation that had fought with such bravery in the Great War now just give in against the old foe? And this time, Lamb knew, their enemy was not just the old foe, but a new and ghastly one that had risen from the ashes of a country ground down by reparations imposed by the French. Hitler had taken the bones of a broken Germany and fashioned them into a new creature – a nameless horror that must be stopped, whatever it took to do so.
He reached the crossroads and stopped, then turned to look into the starry night down the road along which they had come, back towards the east, and wondered how long it would take the Germans who lay that way to reach the spot on which he now stood. Soon some German officer would be here, gloating over the fact that they had taken the site of Wellington’s victory. He lit a cigarette and took a long drag. Then he heard the village clock across the valley strike eight, and after a few last puffs, he threw it down and ground out the light before heading back towards his men, filled with thoughts of home.
Chapter 5
Lamb and his men arrived on the outskirts of Tournai just as the church clocks were striking the hour and joined a column of British infantry making its slow progress along the cobbled street. Three o’clock, thought Lamb. Good, that would give the men good time to rest before the next day’s march. He wondered where their battalion was now – presumably regrouping with the brigade. Two days was a long time to be adrift from your unit. Obviously the first priority was to deliver the brigadier’s message. That done, they would set off in earnest in search of the battalion. He decided that he would take the note from the brigadier to the highest-ranking officer in the town and take his cue from him. His own instinct was to go north.
Smart turned to him. ‘Blimey, sir. It’s like Piccadilly Circus here.’
It looked to Lamb as if every regiment in the British army must be converging on the town, and by every means available. There were Matilda tanks, staff cars, Bedford trucks, Bren carriers and civilian cars and lorries containing troops. Some were even travelling in open hay wagons drawn by horses. Most of the infantry, though, were on foot. As they advanced further into the town it became clear that the German bombers had paid more than a passing a visit here, very recently. Smoking ruins stood on every street. In some cases entire terraces had been reduced to rubble.
Bennett whistled. ‘Blimey, sir. This place ain’t half taken a pounding. Poor sods. I hope they got out before it happened.’
They passed firemen and civilians working together still trying to extinguish the flames, which continued to burn, mostly from open gas mains. Everywhere there was evidence of the human loss. Clothes and possessions littered the rubble. Lamb saw a woman to his left, half naked, sitting on a pile of bricks. She was sobbing uncontrollably and Lamb wondered what nameless horror had fuelled her grief. As he looked a huge explosion split the air. The men turned to look and to their left saw the façade of several shops tumble to the street. A controlled blast, by the look of it, he thought, trying to stem the fires, and then, sure enough, he saw British engineers laying charges.
They rounded a bend in the street and entered the city centre, or what was left of it. The bombers had known their target, Lamb presumed. This had not been a specific military raid or an attack on factories but simply an attempt to destroy the ancient city and terrorise its population into subjugation. And from what he could see it had almost succeeded. The scene was of utter desolation. Buildings that he presumed had been until hours ago major historic landmarks were now no more than smoking shells. Yet still above them all stood the cathedral with its distinctive towers. And through it all, across roads still being cleared of debris, thousands of British soldiers were making their way.
Bennett spoke. ‘Crikey, Mister Lamb, the whole blinkin’ army’s ’ere. Reckon we might even find our mob in this lot.’
‘I doubt it, Sarnt. They’ve probably headed further north. That would be logical.’
That at least would be what his major, the affable Denis Cooke, would have done. The logical thing. But was there any logic in this war? Any war? Particularly in the sort of war with which he now found himself confronted.
They crossed the river by the main bridge, which, incredibly, was still standing. At a crossroads, standing on an artfully arranged pile of rubble, he found a red-capped British military policeman attempting to direct the traffic and not having much success.
Leaving the men with Bennett, Lamb dodged across the columns. ‘I need to find the GOC. I have a vital message for him. Do you know where he might be?’
The man looked blank and did not stop waving his arms. He shook his head. ‘Can’t say, sir. Sorry. Last time I heard he was in the town hall, but that copped it in the last raid. He’ll have moved on by now, sir. Things are very fluid at present.’
Lamb smiled. ‘Very fluid.’ The classic army euphemism for shambolic. Nonetheless, he decided it would after all be best to make for what was left of the town hall.
‘Thank you, Sarnt. You couldn’t, I suppose, point us in the direction of the town hall?’
‘Just carry on the way you’re going, sir. Can’t miss it. Great big barrack of a place, it is. Good luck, sir.’
They continued into the town and within minutes were standing in a small park in the centre of which, as the MP had predicted, stood his ‘great barrack of a place’, a seventeenth-century château lumped onto part of a medieval monastery. At the moment, though, it looked rather less than imposing. Bombs had rained down here, and the grass was pock-marked with craters. But where the carefully manicured gardens had not been touched the flowers still bloomed. It was a grotesque sight, made all the more so by the row upon row of corpses which were being laid out on the grass, their legs sticking out grotesquely from beneath the blankets and sheets in which they had been wrapped to preserve something of their dignity in death. He saw a few legs in battledress but they were civilians mostly. Children too. Lamb didn’t bother to count. The town hall was a mess, with its roof caved in, rafters sticking up like teeth and two walls gone. It seemed to him unlikely that it was still functioning as the British HQ. On the right, though, a smaller, similarly elegant building was still standing. Outside two British soldiers stood sentry.
Lamb turned to Bennett. ‘I’m going in there, Sarnt. Looks more promising. Get the men away from here, will you? Don’t want them looking at any more dead bodies more than they have to, particularly civilians.’
As Bennett led the platoon away across the park, Lamb crossed the grass to the door of the building and to his delight managed to talk his way past the sentries by mention that he had a message from Brigadier Meadows. Once inside he was met with a scene of some confusion. Men were walking and running across his path and no one seemed to be aware of him. He tried to accost a passing captain but was ignored. Directly ahead of him was a passageway lined with nineteenth-century portraits of black-clad council officials, and more from instinct than anything else he walked down it. No one stopped him. At the end was a door; Lamb turned the brass handle and entered. He found himself in a large library, lined on all sides with well-stocked mahogany shelves.
At the far end of the room, beneath a low-hung chandelier, a tall, lean man, a colonel from his insignia and red tabs, was pouring over several maps spread out over a table with another staff officer, a major. As Lamb entered they both looked up.
The major spoke. ‘Yes? What is it now? We’re very busy in here. If it’s that bloody mayor again, tell him that his surrender to the Jerries will have to wait. We’re not planning to go anywhere just yet.’
He turned back to the map.
Lamb coughed and saluted. ‘No, sir. Lieutenant Lamb, sir. North Kents.’
The colonel looked up this time, returned a casual salute and raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes?’
‘I have a vitally important message from Brigadier Meadows, sir, from 1 Corps. He ordered me to get it to GHQ by whatever means possible.’
The major and colonel looked at each other, then the colonel spoke, smiling. ‘And I suppose I’m the nearest thing that you can find to GHQ?’
‘Yes, sir. I suppose so, sir.’
‘Yes, you’re very probably right. I think I am.’ He turned to the major. ‘I am, aren’t I, Simpson?’
‘Yes, sir. I’m very much afraid you are. At least here in Tournai at present.’
The colonel frowned. ‘A signal from Dewy Meadows? A vital message? That hardly sounds likely. Not from Dewy.’
Lamb cringed. He had of course thought all along that the brigadier seemed an unlikely source of vital information, if not actually bogus. But nothing surprised him now in the army.
The colonel continued, puzzled, ‘Where did you find him?’
Lamb knew as he said it that his answer would sound absurd. ‘At Waterloo, sir. On the battlefield, that is. He was bivouacked there.’
The colonel laughed out loud. ‘Waterloo, eh? Trust Dewy. What the devil was he doing there?’ He looked down at the map. ‘Isn’t that in the French sector anyway? Simpson?’
The major nodded. ‘French Second Corps, sir. Though we think they’ve been overrun by now.’
‘Poor old Dewy’s probably in the bag by now then. That’ll teach him to get lost.’ He turned back to Lamb. ‘He was lost?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you got through to here with the message? How the devil did you manage that?’
‘I just followed the map, sir, and stayed off the main roads. There were air attacks, dozens of them, sir, and refugees. Thousands. But we just read the map. It wasn’t that difficult.’
The colonel nodded. ‘We? How many men are you?’
‘My platoon, sir. That is, less casualties. Twenty-six at present.’
‘You brought twenty-six men with a message from Dewy Meadows, cross-country to here, presumably through enemy lines, and then you found me. You did well. You’re quite a man, Mister . . . what did you say your name was again?’
‘Lamb, sir. Peter Lamb.’
The colonel paused for a moment, then looked at the major. ‘Lamb? Wasn’t that last dispatch about a chap called Lamb?’
The major nodded. ‘Yes, sir. Report came down from the Coldstreams. Apparently he held up a German division at the Dyle. Took out a bridging party single handed with grenades. They thought he might be mentioned in dispatches.’
‘Was that you?’
Lamb nodded. ‘Yes, sir. I suppose it was.’
The colonel thought for a moment and then looked at the major. ‘Do you think?’
‘Well, sir. If he is who he says he is, then he’s the best we’ve seen here. It’s worth a go, sir.’
The colonel looked back at Lamb and seemed as if he was about to say something. But then he stopped and stared hard at Lamb. ‘Hold on. Who won the cup last year?’
Lamb frowned. ‘Sorry, sir?’
‘Who won the cup, man? The cup. The football league. Who won it?’
Lamb racked his brain. Names tumbled out – Everton, Liverpool, Chelsea. Football had never been his game. Rugby and cricket, yes, from school. He had been in the first XV, full back. But football? He had of course mugged up enough to be able to talk to the men about it. A fellow officer had once told him that was one of the smartest things a subaltern could do. He tried desperately to remember. The colonel was looking worried. He turned to the major who, Lamb noticed, had flipped open the flap of the holster at his belt.
Then suddenly Lamb had it. ‘No one won it, sir. There was no league last year. It was abandoned after war was declared. Everton won the first division . . . and Portsmouth won the FA Cup.’
The colonel gave a sigh of relief and smiled. ‘Good God, man. That was close. Didn’t think you’d get it. Thought we’d have to shoot you. Well done, Lamb. Sorry. Can’t be too careful. Fifth columnists. Now where’s this vital note?’
