Cloudless May (74 page)

He has been well trained by Woerth, Rienne thought. He was delighted; then grieved that he would not be able to repeat it to Ligny.

He had still to see Mathieu. Not only was Mathieu in danger; but even if he were not shot, his work was finished. This Jew was the most uncompromising of Frenchmen. There would be no place in Labenne's Seuilly for his strict and arrogant passion.

When he walked in, Mathieu was pushing a notebook into his pocket. “I was coming to see you,” he said at once, “to ask you to take this out of the country with you. It's everything I have been able to find out about Labenne.”

“What made you suppose I was leaving?”

“It's quite clear what is going to happen,” Mathieu said curtly. “This Government of stocks and stones will be kicked over; another will fly to North Africa and fight from there. We have a million and a half troops in Africa and Syria—and with all we can get out of the country—”

He was speaking with such dry ardour that for a moment Rienne believed him. Only for a moment. Strange—that Mathieu who had all along had his eyes open on disaster, did not recognise it. Was it because, at the last minute, all he had so far overlooked in France—the shapes and colours of the roofs, the taste of her bread, all that web of scents, sounds, savours, which his country throws over a child before he learns to speak, and Mathieu had ignored—had slipped between him and the truth? So that now he saw only France, and her courage and generosity, and nothing of her failure—nothing at all of her disgrace? With a little anguish, Rienne lifted his hand to drive away the image. It was too late for Mathieu to notice the smile on the perfect lips; his idol was at last, in the same moment when he saw it breathe, only stone.

“You're deceiving yourself,” he said drily. “The politicians will do nothing. They have given in—like the generals. I came here to tell you that I'm going to try to reach England—and ask
you
to come with me.”

Mathieu looked at him with a slight smile.

“I couldn't possibly live in England,” he said. “I've only once been out of France . . . it was a mistake.”

“If you stay here,” Rienne said, “either the Germans will get rid of you—or Labenne will.”

Mathieu was scarcely listening. He lifted his hand in the familiar gesture. “You say this is really capitulation? Do you know what you're saying? No, I'm sorry—of course you do. Besides, I knew.”

“The war will go on, under other leaders. England—”

“You can keep your England!” Mathieu cried. He was discovering other tones and gestures neglected in his childhood, which he could use now. “I couldn't stand the damp.”

“But if they fight—and whether they care about us or not—”

“Why shouldn't they fight for us?” Mathieu said simply. There were, he knew, Frenchmen who needed to balance their image of France with some other country—always with some country, never the sea, which would do as well and without expecting loans. It was senseless. The other peoples were in debt to France already for her refusal to alter the measure she used to keep machines and theories exactly to scale with human instincts. To refuse to help her was dishonest. Alas, as he knew, also an instinct.

Rienne looked at him with a smiling impatience. “Do you believe I know better than you do what is happening?”

“Yes,” Mathieu said—after a moment.

“Then you'll come with me?”

“You don't even know how long you'll be away—”

Rienne burst out laughing. “We're not discussing a holiday! What do you think? I don't count on coming back.”

Mathieu moved his head stiffly. “I can't come. . . . I don't think they'll kill me: they'll arrange for me to die quietly of hunger by seeing to it that I've no job. . . . In England, I should die of another hunger. Besides, England doesn't want me, a half-crippled intellectual—she has her own. She wants
soldiers. . . . I may still be some use here—even with my name.”

If my name had been Bergeot! he thought. A month ago he would have said it: a little late, he was also discovering kindness.

Rienne recognised an obstinacy which even had something childish in it—a child who clung to his own place, mistrusting his power to make any other warm enough to live in. It was useless to argue. And he had no time. He stood up.

“There are fifteen thousand people in Seuilly,” Mathieu said suddenly. “If we had shot two or three of them—civilians—the generals don't matter now; it won't be generals who will resist. . . . No! If we had shot only one—but five, ten years ago.”

“Who?”

“Labenne, of course.”

Rienne looked at him, and at the room which Mathieu had never troubled to make comfortable—because he despised comfort, and because he was in nothing so Jewish as in his austerity. It was as ugly and disobliging as Mathieu himself, and as French—of all peoples the least obliging.

“Goodbye,” he said.

Mathieu smiled.

Rienne was stopped at the first bridge by a lieutenant who asked for his pass. What pass? General Woerth's orders. No one was to cross the bridges, not even the first bridge, to the island, unless he had a pass. The houses on the island and the north bank had been cleared of their inhabitants the day before; a woman who had forgotten to bring her parrot was weeping loudly and abusing a sergeant, he defended himself by telling her that the general was fond of birds and if she called at the barracks would certainly give her a pass. . . . A long line of Ollivier's tanks and armoured cars was moving, slowly enough, across the bridges.

“I'll write my own pass,” Rienne said. He tore a page from
his notebook. The young officer watched uneasily: he was relieved when, just as Rienne handed him the piece of paper, a car arrived with Colonel Stoffel. The P.A. snatched the paper, glanced over it, and tore it across.

“I think you know the meaning of an order,” he said drily.

“I know the meaning of this order,” Rienne said,

“Well?”

“I propose to take no notice of it.”

He stepped past the two officers, and began walking across” the bridge with his unhurried stride. He half expected—so pointed was Stoffel's contempt—to be fired at. But Stoffel contented himself by saying, “Leave him. He'll be dealt with.”

Tanks, anti-tank guns and trucks were still crossing, but he could see the end of the column, not a great way beyond Ollivier's headquarters. The machine-gun posts at the side streets were gone. . . . It was a quarter to five. As he approached the house, Ollivier came out and stood looking up the road to the north. His shoulders and body were bent slightly forward, as though he were using all his weight against a still invisible enemy. He turned round and saw Rienne.

“Bonamy!” he cried joyfully. “Now we're off.”

“I hope so,” Rienne murmured. He had only to move his arms to try on a happiness that fitted him as though it had been made for him. He moved them.

“Did you get my message?” Ollivier said. “Of course you did. You're in time for the best act. The Boche and his tanks can't be more than ten kilometres away.”

“And yours——?”

“What about mine?”

“Are on their way into Seuilly.”

A gleam of shrewd malice in Ollivier's eyes, the look which infuriates a townsman when he sees it in the eyes of a peasant he has been advising. “I had my orders this morning,” he said. “I didn't waste any time. I started off the non-combatant units first, the supply, kitchen, radio trucks. Then I had my commanders and anti-tank gunners into my room and explained the position to them carefully. I told them I was prepared to stay here and use any tanks or guns—even a single one—if the crews cared to stay with me. We would do the Boche as much harm as possible, and if any of us survived he would be court-martialled
for disobeying an order. I left them to talk it over and talk to their men.”

“Well?”

“I have a platoon, a whole division, a corps,” Ollivier cried. “I have two tanks, two 25 mm. anti-tank guns, and two 47's. And an armoured car. Everything I need for a little exercise in intellectual indiscipline. . . . The Ollivier Group. . . . Are you going to stay? One of my tanks has only its gunner, the other two went. Come and look.”

He was laughing. He walked a little in front of Rienne, his head down, walking with the infantryman's short step he kept deliberately, as though it went at the pace of his thoughts. With a little effort, knowing how it irritated him to walk with someone who was out of step, Rienne fell into it. Ollivier turned his head, smiling; his eyes sparkled.

Rienne decided to speak. “But, Michel, I came to ask you to come to England with me tonight or tomorrow. The English will go on.”

Ollivier stood still. He looked at his friend with the air of authority as natural to him as his malice. He was surprised, but not, Rienne saw, more than a little. He has been thinking of it, Rienne said to himself. He felt a cruel anxiety, and said nothing more.

“So you think we're done for?”

“No,” Rienne said. “But we are giving up.” He was not used to the idea yet.

Ollivier walked on more slowly. “Since Pétain's broadcast yesterday, I've reflected. How I admire logic. And don't give a screw for it today. We've been too clever with our famous logic, we're too proud of not being able to reason except with our minds. Logic and reason say that since we're outnumbered, out-armed, out-fought, we should admit our defeat. So much the worse for them. Our country is going into the dark because in the last ten years we reasoned ourselves out of our responsibilities. We had so many! To the rest of the world, which expected one or other of our villages to provide a great man for each decade. To our fields, which expected of us simply men. To ourselves—we expected that in a crisis there would always be one man, he might until that moment have been no better than he should be, who would save us. This time we have
forgotten to arrange for him to be born. . . . We can't be saved by logic, only by acts.”

Rienne saw the artery beating in his temple. Always near the surface, his blood had felt itself called on. “Go on,” he said gently.

“I can't. . . . Each of us must act out of himself. Now that the centre outside has broken down. . . . I'm a soldier: when I act out of myself I fight—here. If you like—for the sake of the example. But in fact because it is all I can do; I can't write my belief in the future, I have to act it.”

He smiled at Rienne. “You, too,” he said. “If you are going to England, you must go now. I'm afraid it might be fatal to wait. . . .”

“I shall stay,” Rienne said, instantly. He had surprised himself.

Ollivier was not surprised in the least. It was clear he had expected nothing else. “If we get through I'll come with you,” he said casually. His voice changed. “Do you think I'm incapable of reasoning?” he exclaimed. “Let me tell you, I considered the position very carefully. My latest information is that we've lost Belfort and Metz, two of our fortresses, but we're still fighting in our châteaux—Tours, Blois, Orléans. The Loire is still holding. Obviously, it's common sense to fight here, as well as agreeable. . . . Why are you smiling?”

“At your tactics,” Rienne said, “or do I mean your logic?” He was ready to laugh at anything. Never had he felt happier. “What a day!” he said. “Look at the sky, look at that cloud.” It was a white burning bush. He stretched his arms. What a joy to stretch them again in a world that had regained the freshness and ample suavity of its youth.
“Car l'homme n'est jamais libre qu'au régiment”
he recited.

Ollivier burst out laughing. “You and your Péguy!”

They had reached the bridge. They could see the last of the anti-tank guns and tanks crossing the second bridge into Seuilly. They could see the trees on the south bank of the Loire, the theatre, the shabby square in sunlight, the High Street far too modest for its name. Turning their backs on this little France, they would see nearly a mile of the road north, that is, one of the roads already in the German shadow.

Ollivier had placed two of his anti-tank guns here, at the
north end of the north bridge, with the armoured car as a fixed fort. His other two guns were hidden a quarter of a mile up the road, in the first side streets of this poor little northern part of Seuilly, given over to plane trees and workers. There were glasses on the table outside a small bistro, left there when the order came to move. . . . Thanks to Piriac, there were no defences. To get any field of fire, the anti-tank guns at the bridge had to be placed in the middle of the road. No time to dig in. Thanks again to Piriac, who had an old general's eye for detail, the sandbags were a glaring white. Looking across the river, Ollivier cursed a little. “Think what a much better run for our money we should have on that side,” he said with regret. . . . Suddenly an aeroplane—German. It circled slowly, and disappeared northwards without doing more than signal to them the precariousness of their position with their backs to the river.

Rienne was looking across the bridges. “We're being reinforced.”

An officer ran across the south bridge. They watched him: when he reached the second bridge, the same German aeroplane came over; he lay flat, marking for it the frontier between free and invaded France. He reached them breathless, with a message from Colonel Stoffel. Why were they hanging about? Hurry—they must hurry.

“Tell Colonel Stoffel I'm coming as fast as I can,” Ollivier said.

The officer ran back a short distance, turned. “I forgot,” he cried. “You're within range of the German heavy artillery.”

“Many thanks,” Ollivier said. “And of their planes too, I suppose.”

“I'm giving you the message.”

“I was sure of it. I wanted to save you coming back. You might have forgotten some other danger.”