Illumination (32 page)

‘I quite agree.’ Besson sat up, preparing for a further disclosure. ‘That is why, after we had made our delivery to Minister Gambetta, I was intending to call on a certain American resident of Tours.’

Here it was: the hidden aspect of Besson’s mission that Clem had detected during his recruitment in the Gare du Nord. ‘Another veteran?’

‘A man who knows veterans – many veterans. A newspaper reporter. Peabody gave me his name. I was going to request that he telegraph his contacts in Washington, so that I could learn exactly what Jean-Jacques Allix did over there. Where he fought, if anywhere.’ He glanced across at Clem. ‘My hope was that you would witness any reply I received.’

Clem raised his eyebrows, unsure if he’d been lied to and manipulated or admitted into Besson’s closest confidence. He decided to stick to assembling the
aérostier
’s story. ‘Allix found out, though, and tried to kill you. To kill us both.’

‘He has been watching the factory. I am sure of it. He knew that I was asking questions about him and he has some very serious secrets to protect. I was safe while your sister was at the Gare du Nord. As soon as she left, however, he was looking for his chance to be rid of me.’

Clem considered this; he said nothing.

‘Who else could have done it, I ask you? Who else would want me dead?’ Besson took the packet of orders from his smock. ‘Even those reds who hate the balloon post know that the fate of France could have rested on Gambetta. They might want the provisional government to fall, but they do not want defeat.’

The case was a pretty convincing one. ‘What are these secrets, then?’ Clem asked, laying a hand across his clammy forehead. ‘What is Monsieur Allix hiding?’

‘He is no ultra, that much is definite. I suspect that he is an agent for General Trochu, or a hidden faction that supports the return of Louis Napoleon – or even the House of Orléans. Some of these people do not care if France is beaten. They would prefer it, even, imagining that they can deal more successfully with a conquering king than a popular republic.’

‘Are you really saying that he
opposes
the reds?’

‘Jean-Jacques Allix is undermining the socialist cause, Pardy. That is his purpose in Paris. He has gained their loyalty, their adoration, in order to destroy them – to convince them to commit massed self-slaughter before the Prussian army.’

‘Dear Lord.’

‘You must think of your family.’ Besson’s voice was insistent. ‘They are very close to this man. Think of your sister.’

Anxiety brought Clem’s headache to a new, excruciating pitch. Something inched across his lip: blood was seeping from his nostril. He climbed awkwardly to his feet, dabbing at his face. The food he’d gobbled down sat in his belly like a heap of cold rocks. Trying vainly to blink away the pain, he managed to pick up the peasant clothes left for him, but couldn’t even begin to start changing into them.

‘But we’re – we’re … where the hell are we?’

‘Tournan-en-Brie, they told me.’

‘We’re in
Prussian-controlled land
, Besson. Would they even give us a trial if they caught us – us or the folk who stowed us in here? Wouldn’t they just shoot us all against the nearest bit of wall?’ Clem shielded his eyes; the dim cellar had grown unbearably bright. ‘And have you thought about Paris? It’s
sealed tight
. There’s no way in. The balloon was a one-way ticket, old man. You knew this – you of all bloody people.’

‘Calm yourself.’ Besson rose to his haunches and pinched out the candle. ‘I have an idea.’

They were seen at forty yards. The Prussians tumbled from the low stable they’d been sitting in and formed an impromptu firing line.

‘Lift your hands,’ said Besson. ‘Now.’

Clem obeyed, thrusting his arms up to their full length. He linked his thumbs to make a bird and let out a hoarse whistle. ‘Recognise it?’

Besson ignored him; his eyes were fixed on the Prussians.

‘Come on, Émile old man, it’s a nightingale. A bloody
nightingale
. You have ’em, don’t you, here in Frog-land?
Light winged Dryad of the trees, in some melodious plot of beechen green, and
… erm … dah-da-dum, something something
of summer in full-throated ease
.’ Clem had never been very good at remembering poetry, to his mother’s oft-stated disappointment. It felt uncommonly important, however, to press on now. ‘
Oh for a draught of vintage! that hath been—
’

‘Keep quiet.’ Besson was impassive. ‘Remember the plan. You are English. There was field artillery. A farm girl. You need to see the front.’

They’d burned their
aérostier
uniforms the previous evening, heavy boots, embroidered flying helmets and all. Clem had been too groggy and nauseous to care. Besson had added his packet of special orders to the flames – useless now, founded as they were on an impossible French victory at the Villiers Plateau. He’d then talked their way up the hierarchy of Tournan-en-Brie until they were sitting in the parlour of the village doctor. A long, very French conversation had ensued: much impassioned gesticulation with a round of handshakes and embraces at the end. Clem’s wound had been cleaned and dressed, the physician passing him a phial of clear liquid once the bandages had been pinned in place.

‘For the pain,’ Besson had explained.

Clem had drunk it at once. It had no real taste, but there was a redolence of peaches – or rather of an artificial, peach-like flavour. Soon afterwards his head, so leaden and agonising, had lifted clean off his shoulders. That parlour, he’d decided, was the cosiest, most comfortable little corner he’d ever been in his life; he’d snuggled down in his armchair, wishing that he could be buried for ever among its tasselled cushions.

Then he’d been in a bedroom, a matronly woman undressing him in the straightforward manner one undresses an invalid, replacing the smock and canvas jacket with a suit of dark green wool. He’d closed his eyes and found himself in the back of a cart, bumping along a chalky road through fields of blackened corn-stubble. A second later and he’d been sitting with Besson in a small, close wood, having their plan of action described to him in terms his addled brain could absorb. Everything had been bright, colourful, unaccountably amusing. He’d been warm as toast despite the dead white frost. All around them invisible birds had trilled in the trees; for a single instant he’d caught the sound of a choir, sliding somewhere beneath the wind. As soon as they’d got it all reasonably straight, Besson had led him over a grassy rise to the Prussians.

One of them – a corporal or sergeant or something, with the most shockingly yellow set of stripes on his arm – stepped to the end of the stable, shouting back towards a quaint farmhouse. An officer emerged, shaving soap on his jaw, pulling on a pair of pebble spectacles. It was the funniest damned thing Clem had seen in a while; he had to bite his cheek to stop himself from laughing. In a flash, this officer was standing in front of him, brandishing a pistol rather like the one briefly entrusted to Clem in the doomed
Aphrodite
. The shaving foam was gone, wiped away with a handkerchief; he was round-faced and ill-tempered, with the smell of fresh bacon on his greatcoat. Clem’s eye was drawn to his belt-buckle: a huge silver eagle, fantastically detailed, literally every feather on the creature’s breast picked out. He stared at it, dumbfounded.

The man demanded something of Clem in accented French. Besson shifted at his shoulder, waiting for him to deliver the response they’d rehearsed.

With mammoth difficulty, Clem tore his gaze away from the eagle and lowered his arms. ‘English,’ he managed to say. ‘
Ing – glish
. Reporters. From a newspaper. Here.’ He took a notebook from his pocket, the pages covered with a fake narrative penned by Besson the previous night in his mechanical-looking hand. ‘That’s what we do. Write things. About you lot.’

The Prussian relaxed a little, but remained hostile. He asked Clem a question in German – and sighed at his friendly, uncomprehending smile. ‘
Namen
?’

‘My name? Mr Inglis. I, my dear fellow, am the English Inglis. English the Inglisman.’ Clem glanced at Besson. Be unashamed, the
aérostier
had instructed him; be assertive. That is what they will expect. ‘I am Montague Inglis of the
Sentinel
and I want my bloody breakfast.’

A runner was sent off down a lane to another position. Clem looked between the farm buildings towards Paris. Smoke was trailing from unseen fires, melting into the overcast sky; and another Prussian officer was before him, a man who could speak his language. He had a quieter manner than the shaving-soap chap, along with a light beard and large, faintly amphibian eyes. His uniform, too, was different – less bellicose, lacking all the spikes and eagles that festooned the others. This, Clem reckoned, was a species of intelligence officer. He delivered the explanation drilled into him in the wood: they’d been covering the sortie until some French field artillery had fired on them, forcing a retreat into the countryside. Now, having finally found their way back, they were eager to see the results of the battle for their paper, the
Sentinel
.

The Prussian was flipping through the notebook, reading Besson’s work. ‘What happened to your head, Herr Inglis?’

‘Farm girl,’ Clem answered promptly. ‘Approached this plump Juno for directions, didn’t I. Some mistake that was – the prim young madam mistook my intentions and pushed me into a ditch.’ He touched the bandages that wound around his crown, under one of the doctor’s hats; he could feel the dampness of blood beneath them, but no pain at all. ‘A deuced rocky ditch, as it turned out. If it hadn’t been for Graves here I’d have been done for.’

The Prussian returned the notebook, smiling dryly. He plainly had no trouble believing the violent tendencies of French farm girls – or that Clem was a bumbling cad. I’m quite the liar, Clem reflected, when I apply myself to it; that all came out as smooth as bloody silk.

‘This man is your servant, I take it?’

Besson was dressed in brown tweed. The village doctor had been closer to Clem’s size; the
aérostier
’s trousers bunched on top of his shoes, and his coat hung emptily around his shoulders. He’d shaved himself clean in an effort to seem more English, and the removal of his beard had altered his appearance quite profoundly. He looked younger and paler, as people always did; and the revelation of a slight fall to his lower lip lent him a studious, cerebral aspect. He resembled a professor more than any kind of servant – but damn it all, Clem thought, we must work with what we are given. We are a pair of survivors, Émile Besson and I. We are like
brothers
.

‘My clerk, yes. Mr Graves – and never did a chap have a more apt moniker. Oh yes! No more words from Mr Graves than are
strictly necessary
.’

The Prussian kept on smiling. Clem decided that they could be fast friends. If only they could sit down for a proper chinwag – a bit of schnapps, perhaps, with some roast chicken or duck. It occurred to him that he was perishingly hungry.

‘And you want to see the front line?’

‘Indeed we do, sir, and post-haste. Got to keep the blasted editor off my back, you understand. Can’t afford to dilly-dally. It has to be
current
.’

This was at the heart of their plan. Back in the wood, Besson had explained to him that the Prussians would be keen to get reports of Parisian defeats into neutral newspapers – papers that would be sure to find their way through the blockade and weaken the defenders’ morale. They would surely want to help an unlucky English reporter get to his story; and Clem was so very English that no Prussian could possibly doubt that he was what he claimed to be.

‘You are a good distance from the Villiers Plateau,’ their officer told them, ‘but the French were also crushed at Choisy-le-Roi – just over there, where I am stationed. My name is Major Hempf. I will escort you, and will endeavour to answer any questions you might have for your report.’

The major shook their hands and guided them across a field. It seemed to spring beneath Clem’s feet like a fluffy sponge cake, the cracking frost a drizzle of lemon icing. He was about to remark on this to Hempf – thinking it a rather diverting observation – when the word
crushed
suddenly registered. The French had been crushed. Han had been crushed. Struggling to keep his voice casual and his bouncing boots under control, he asked about the sortie. In short, economical sentences, Hempf told him that the French had been allowed to advance a certain distance out of the Marne valley – where they’d been halted, contained and soundly beaten, before finally being allowed to crawl back again. Something dark awoke within Clem and started trying frantically to scratch its way out. Hempf offered him a cigarette; he accepted with gratitude. Besson had prepared him for this. I can do nothing for her, he recited inwardly, sucking down smoke. We are going to Paris as swiftly as we can. We will learn everything then; we will help her then. We must stay focused on our goal.

They arrived in Choisy-le-Roi. Signs of savage fighting were everywhere. Twenty or so dead Prussians lay in a back garden, awaiting burial by a dilapidated clapboard fence. Clem coughed and looked away.

‘The French lost far more,’ Hempf assured him. ‘Over one thousand shot down in this engagement alone – and it was merely a diversion. The main sortie was a massacre. A farce. Is that the word, in English? A stupid performance – a debacle?’

‘Yes,’ Clem replied, dropping his cigarette. ‘Yes, that is a farce.’

‘Marshal Moltke felt obliged to declare a cease-fire so they could come out to collect their dead and wounded. Although I must tell you that their orderlies were more interested in digging up cabbages and potatoes from abandoned vegetable gardens than removing their fallen comrades.’ There was disgust on Hempf’s face. ‘I saw men ignoring the injured to strip the carcass of a dead horse. No Prussian would ever behave with such dishonour.’

‘Where?’ said Besson, his voice lowered to disguise his accent.