Unconditional surrender (10 page)

An aeroplane rising half a mile distant, and thunderously skimming the chimneys of the house, an obsolete bomber such as was adapted for parachute training, roused Ludovic from the near-stupor into which he had fallen. He rose from his deep chair and at his desk entered on the first page of a new notebook a
pensée: The penalty of sloth is longevity
. Then he went to the window and gazed blankly through the plate glass.

He had chosen these rooms because they were secluded from the scaffolds and platforms where the training exercises took place in front of the house. He faced, across half an acre of lawn, what the previous owners had called their ‘arboretum’. Ludovic thought of it merely as ‘the trees’. Some were deciduous and had now been stripped bare by the east wind that blew from the sea, leaving the holm oaks, yews, and conifers in carefully contrived patterns, glaucous, golden, and of a green so deep as to be almost black at that sunless noon; they afforded no pleasure to Ludovic.

Where, he asked himself, could he hide during the next ten days? It did not occur to him to go on leave. He had had all the leave that was due to him and his early training had left him with a superstitious regard for orders. Jumbo Trotter would have devised a dozen perfectly regular means of absenting himself. He would, if all else failed, have posted himself to a senior officers’ ‘refresher’ course. Ludovic had never sought to master the byways of military movement He stared at the arboretum and remembered the saw: ‘The place to hide a leaf is in a tree.’

He went downstairs and across the hall to the ante-room. Captain Fremantle was still there with the chief instructor.

‘Sit down. Sit down,’ he said, for he had never experienced, and had not sought to introduce under his command, the easy manners of the Officers’ House at Windsor or at the Halberdiers’ Depot. ‘Here is the nominal roll of tomorrow’s batch. He handed it over and then he lingered. ‘Fremantle,’ he said, ‘does my name appear anywhere?’

‘Appear, sir?’

‘I mean are the men under instruction aware of my name?’

‘Well sir, you usually meet them and speak to them the first night, don’t you? You begin: “I am the commandant. My name is Ludovic. I want you all to feel free to come to me with any difficulties.”’

This had indeed been the custom which Ludovic had inherited from his more genial predecessor in office, and very unnerving his baleful stare, as he spoke these formalities of welcome, had proved to more than one apprehensive client. None had ever come to him with any difficulty.

‘Do I? Is that what I say?’

‘Well, something like that usually, sir.’

‘Ah but if I
don’t
meet them, could they find out who I am? Is there a list of the establishment posted anywhere? Does my name appear on standing orders? Or daily orders?’

‘I think it does, sir. I’ll have to check on that.’

‘I want all orders in future to be signed by you “Staff captain for Commandant”. And have any notices that need it retyped with my name omitted. Is that clear?’

‘Yes sir’

‘And I shan’t be coming into the mess. I shall take all my meals in my office for the next week or so.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Captain Fremantle regarded him with puzzled concern. ‘You may think this rather strange, Fremantle. It’s a question of security. They are tightening it up. As you know, this station is on the secret list. There have been some leaks lately. I received orders this morning that I was to go, as it were, “under-ground”. You may think it all rather extravagant. I do myself. But those are our orders. I shall start the new régime today. Tell the mess corporal to serve my lunch upstairs.’

‘Very good, sir.’

He left them and walked out of the french windows towards the trees.

‘Well,’ said the chief instructor, ‘what d’you make of that?

‘He didn’t get any orders this morning. I went through the mail. There was only one “secret” envelope—the nominal roll we always get.’

‘Persecution mania,’ said the chief instructor. ‘It can’t be anything else.’

Ludovic walked alone among the trees. What had been paths were ankle deep in dead leaves and cones and pine needles. His glossy boots grew dull. Presently he turned back and, avoiding the french windows, entered by a side door and the back stairs. On his table lay a great plate of roast meat – a week’s ration for a civilian – a heap of potatoes and cold thick gravy, and beside it a pudding of sorts. He gazed at these things, wondering what to do. The bell did not work nor, had it done so, were the mess orderlies trained to answer it. He could not bear to sit beside this distasteful plethora waiting to see what would become of it. He took to the woods once more. Now and then an aeroplane came in to land or climbed roaring above him. Dusk began to fall. He was conscious of damp. When at last he returned to his room, the food was gone. He sat in his deep chair while the gathering dusk turned to darkness.

There was a knock at the door. He did not answer. Captain Fremantle looked in and the light from the passage revealed Ludovic sitting there, empty-handed, staring.

‘Oh,’ said Captain Fremantle, ‘I’m sorry, sir. I was told you had gone out. Are you all right, sir?’

‘Quite all right, thank you. Why should you fear otherwise? I like sometimes to sit and think. Perhaps if I smoked a pipe, it would seem more normal. Do you think I should buy a pipe?’

‘Well that’s rather a matter of taste, isn’t it, sir?’

‘Yes and to me it would be highly disagreeable. But I will buy a pipe, if it would make you easier in your mind about me.’

Captain Fremantle withdrew. As he shut the door he heard Ludovic switch on the light. He returned to the ante-room. ‘The old man’s stark crazy,’ he reported.

It was part of the very light veil of secrecy which enveloped Ludovic’s villa that its location was not divulged to the ‘clients’. It was known officially as No. 4 Special Training Centre. Those committed to it were ordered to report at five in the afternoon to the Movement Control office in a London terminus, where they were mustered by a wingless Air Force officer and thence conveyed into Essex by motor bus. They did not see this airman again until the day of departure. His contribution to the war effort was to travel with them in the dark and see that none deserted or fell into conversation with subversive agents.

Foreign refugees who composed many of the training courses were obfuscated by this stratagem and when caught and tortured by the Gestapo could only give the unsatisfactory answer that they were taken in the dark to an unknown destination, but Englishmen had little difficulty in identifying their route.

When Guy arrived at the rendezvous he found a group of officers which grew to twelve in number. None was higher than captain in rank; all were older than the lean young athletes of the Parachute Regiment. Guy was the oldest of them by some five or six years. They came from many different regiments and like him had been chosen ostensibly for their knowledge of foreign languages and their appetite, if not for adventure, at least for diversity in the military routine. The last to report was a Halberdier, and Guy recognized his one-time subaltern, Frank de Souza.

‘Uncle! What on earth are you doing here? Are you on the staff of this Dotheboys Hall they’re taking us to?’

‘Certainly not. I’m coming on the course with you.’

‘Well, that’s the most cheering thing I’ve heard about it yet. It can’t be as arduous as they make out if they take old sweats like you.’

They sat together at the back of the bus and throughout the hour’s drive talked of the recent history of the Halberdiers. Colonel Tickeridge was now brigadier; Ritchie-Hook a major-general. ‘He can’t bear it and he’s not much use at it either. He’s never to be found at his own headquarters. Always biffing about in front.’ Erskine now commanded the 2nd Battalion; de Souza had had D Company until a few weeks ago; then he had put in for a posting, claiming a hitherto unrevealed proficiency in Serbo-Croat. ‘I suppose they might call it “battle weariness”,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I wanted a change. Four years is too long in the same outfit for a man who’s naturally a civilian. Besides it wasn’t the same. There aren’t many of the original battalion left. Not many casualties really. We had a suicide in the company. I never knew what about. A militiaman – perfectly cheerful all day and shot himself in his tent one evening. He left a letter to the CSM saying he hoped he would not cause any trouble. A few men got badly hit and sent home. Only one officer, Sarum-Smith, killed, but chaps got shunted about, first one, then another of the temporary officers were sent off on courses and never came back; half the senior NCO’s were superannuated; the new young gentlemen were a dreary lot; until one suddenly realized the whole thing had changed. And then in Italy there were Americans all over the place clamouring for dough-nuts and Coca-Cola and ice-cream. So I decided to put my knowledge of Jugo-Slavia to use.’

‘What do you know about it, Frank?’

‘I once spent a month in Dalmatia, a most agreeable place, and I mugged up a bit of the language from a tourists’ phrase book – enough to satisfy the examiners.’

Guy related his own drab history culminating in his meeting with the Electronic Selector in HOO HQ.

‘Did you come across old Ralph Brompton there?’

‘Do
you
know him, Frank?’

‘Oh, rather. In fact it was he who told me about this Partisan Liaison Mission.’

‘When you were in Italy?’

‘Yes; he wrote. We’re old friends.’

‘How very odd. I thought all his friends were pansies.’

‘Not at all. Nothing of the sort, I assure you. In fact,’ de Souza added with an air of mystification, ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if half this bus load weren’t friends of Ralph Brompton’s one way or another.’

As he said this an unmilitary-looking man, in a beret and greatcoat, turned round in the seat in front of them and scowled at de Souza, who said in a voice of parody: ‘Hullo, Gilpin. Did you see any good shows in towns?’

Gilpin grunted and turned back, and then de Souza in fact began to talk about the theatre.

The welcome at their destination was cordial and efficiently organized. Orderlies were standing by to take their baggage up to their rooms. ‘I’ve put you two Halberdiers together,’ said Captain Fremantle. ‘Here’s the ante-room. I shall be saying a few words after dinner. Meanwhile I expect you can all do with a drink. Dinner will be in half an hour.’

Guy went up. De Souza remained below. As Guy returned he paused on the stairs, hearing his own name mentioned. De Souza and Gilpin were in conversation in what they took to be privacy; Gilpin was plainly rebuking de Souza, who with uncharacteristic humility was attempting to exculpate himself.

‘Crouchback’s all right.’

‘That’s as may be. You had no call to bring up Brompton’s name. You’ve got to watch out who you talk to. You can’t trust anyone.’

‘Oh, I’ve known old Crouchback since 1939. We joined the Halberdiers on the same day.’

‘Yes, and Franco plays a nice game of golf I’ve been told. What’s the name “Halberdiers” got to do with it? I reckon you’ve been picking up a little too much free and easy, Eighth Army esprit de bloody corps.’

The two moved to the ante-room, and Guy, puzzled, followed them after a minute. Seeing de Souza without his ‘British warm’ Guy noticed that he wore the ribbon of the MC.

That evening Captain Fremantle addressed them:

‘I am the staff captain. My name is Fremantle. The commandant wishes you to feel free to come to me with any difficulties …’ He read the standing orders, explained the arrangements of messing and security.

The chief instructor followed him giving them the programme of the course; five days’ instruction and physical training; then the qualifying five jumps from an aeroplane at times to be determined by the conditions of the weather. He gave them some encouraging figures about the rarity of fatalities. ‘Every now and then you get a “Roman candle”. Then you’ve had it. We’ve had a few cases of men fouling their ropes and making a bad landing. On the whole it’s a lot safer than steeple-chasing.’

Guy had never ridden in a steeple-chase and, looking about him, he reflected that no one in the audience, nor the speaker either, seemed likely to have done so.

They went to bed early. De Souza said: ‘All army courses are like prep schools – all that welcoming of the new boys. But we seem to have struck one of the better-class establishments. Dinner wasn’t at all bad. The programme sounds reasonable. I think we are going to be happy here.’

‘Frank, who’s Gilpin?’

‘Gilpin? Chap in the Education Corps. I think he’s a school teacher in civil life. A bit earnest.’

‘What’s he doing here?’

‘The same as the rest of us, I expect. He wants a change.’

‘How do you come to know him?’

‘I know all sorts, uncle.’

‘One of Sir Ralph’s set?’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t suppose so. Would you?’

For two days the squad ‘limbered up’. The PT instructor showed a solicitude for Guy’s age which he did not at all resent.

‘Take it easy. Don’t do too much at first, sir. Anyone can see you’ve been at an office desk. Stop the moment you feel you’ve had enough. We take them all sizes and shapes here. Why last month we had a man so heavy he had to use two parachutes.’

On the third day they jumped off a six foot height and rolled on the grass when they landed. On the fourth day they jumped from ten foot and in the afternoon were sent up a scaffolding higher than the house from which in parachute harness they jumped at the end of a cable which, sprung and weighted, set them gently on their feet at the end of the drop. Here they were sharply scrutinized by the chief instructor for symptoms of hesitation in taking the plunge.

‘You’ll be all right, Crouchback,’ he said. ‘Rather slow off the mark, Gilpin.’

During these days Guy experienced a mild stiffness and was massaged by a sergeant specially retained for this service. There was no night-flying from the adjoining aerodrome. Guy slept excellently and enjoyed a sense of physical well-being. It did not irk him as it irked others of the squad, that they were confined to the grounds.