Ormerod's Landing (50 page)

Groemann nodded as if nothing else had ever occurred to
him. 'We are all in the war together, Einder,' he said, philo
sophically. 'We are all to some extent casualties. Yes, I will do that.'

'There is another matter,' said Einder. 'A suggestion from the News and Propaganda Department...'

I am not standing on my head for Dr Goebbels,' said the general firmly.

Einder looked serious. He was occasionally worried about the general's future. 'It is not standing on your head, sir,' he said pedantically. 'The suggestion is that you should go out in a small rowing boat with two German wounded. If you just sit there for a few minutes, just a short distance from the shore, then the news photographers can get some pictures. A
field officer in a boat with two wounded men would be a nice
touch, don't you think?'

Groemann brightened. 'A good idea, Einder,' he nodded. I haven't been in a little boat for years. But I want to
go
for a row on the lake, not just pose for photographers.'

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'It will not be necessary for you to row, sir,' said Binder hurriedly.

'Why not? It won't be very good publicity if the wounded men do the rowing, will it?' insisted Groemann. 'Not with the general sitting in the boat.'

Einder sighed. 'Yes sir,' he replied.

The car turned along the curve in the road beneath an outcrop of boulders called the Rock of the Dog, because a dog was said to have jumped from it years before and been saved by a miracle. On the top of the rock a Frenchman, working in the gardens of one of the former hotels, now a medical hostel, watched the car turn towards the centre of Bagnoles de l'Orne. He raised his arm in a clear signal. The car went over a little bridge and the central lake of the spa smiled invitingly in the fine morning sun.

At ten minutes before noon General Groemann entered the ward for British and French officers at the former Grand Hotel. So far his tour had been as successful as it had been informal. In Bagnoles the Occupation Forces expected no trouble from any direction. He had, of course, a military escort, but even that was not to the taste of the mild man of Minden. Frequently he made unexpected detours or instructed Einder to keep his escort at a distance.

Ormerod, propped nervously up in the bed half way down the ward, turned his head with all the other patients as the German general entered the room with his entourage. 'Good morning everyone,' said Groemann at the door. His English was firm. Various 'Good mornings' were said, or in most cases tentatively muttered, from different parts of the ward. Groemann smiled at the hesitations. Ormerod thought he looked like a reasonable man. He wondered what exactly Jean Le Blanc had planned for him.

Groemann was on the short side and slightly rounded with it. He came down the lines of beds and talked to the wounded men, not standing over them but sitting on the edges of the beds as he did so. Ormerod heard laughter coming from the far end of the ward. He waited unhappily.

The visiting party came up the other side of the room and

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Ormerod and Bailey watched them approach. 'Doesn't seem a bad old stick, does he?' commented Bailey. 'Not like you would think.' He had his letter, his confession of having lost an eye, now sealed on his bedside locker.

Ormerod decided he did not like the aspect of the young, leaner officer at Groemann's side. The man's cane moved irritatingly against his uniformed leg and he watched the patients with something like quiet mocking. A French and a German doctor followed the party but only came forward if
some technical explanation was needed. In the background
Ormerod suddenly saw the furtive doctor who had brought him into the ward in the dark morning. The man looked whiter than his coat. His eyes seemed to stand out from his skin.

The visiting general moved unhurriedly along the iron bed-rails. The man with the bandaged head next to Ormerod had not awakened all the morning and now slept deeply. Groemann laughed quietly and put his finger to his lips as he crept by the bed on mock tip-toe. He arrived at the bottom of Ormerod's bed. The Englishman's heart seemed to slow and he could feel his hands sweating.

'Good morning to you,' said the German.

'Good morning sir,' said Ormerod. His mouth seemed to be on a hinge like that of a ventriloquist's doll.

'Too good to be in bed in a hospital,' said Groemann genially. 'I expect you would rather be in England playing cricket.'

'Well, sir,' hesitated Ormerod. 'I'm not one for cricket, and it's the wrong season. But I wouldn't mind being home.'

'Nor would I,' sighed the German reflectively. 'Perhaps one
day we can all go home. Where do you live in England?'

'London. Putney.'

'I know, I know,' smiled Groemann. 'It is on the River Thames. Putney Bridge is it not?'

'That's right, sir,' nodded Ormerod. Groemann sat on his bed.

'I was in London,' said the German officer. 'At the embassy
in 1936 and 1937. I had a very good time there. And my wife
also. My God, I like London better than Berlin!' He laughed

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at his joke. Ormerod thought Einder grimaced. 'What is your wound?' asked Groemann.

'Feet,' said Ormerod, suddenly terrified he would be asked to display them. He saw the frightened French doctor move tentatively forward in case a quick explanation was necessary. Groemann merely nodded. 'Not a good place for wounds,' he said. 'Not the feet. You cannot escape. In the First World War men on both sides used to shoot themselves through the feet so that they could miss the fighting and be taken home.'

'I wish I'd thought of that,' said Ormerod.

The German grinned. 'I hope you are better soon,' he said. He stood up and moved on. He shook his head sadly when he saw Bailey's youth and his wound. Ormerod watched him sorrowfully. He had a very strong suspicion that this would be General Wolfgang Groemann's last day on earth.

Lunch was served in the ward and Ormerod began to wonder when anything was going to happen. Without any hope he asked Bailey if he had ever heard of a man called Smales who had been at Bagnoles. Bailey shook his head. Ormerod wondered how far he could trust Marie-Thérèse word that Smales would be located for him. Not far, he had to fancy. Not when she had her own business occupying her mind. And today, after whatever happened, he knew they would have to be on the run and in hiding again. At two o'clock precisely the frightened French doctor came through the ward and gave Ormerod a small, petrified glance. Something was going to occur. Almost at once the sleeping man in the next bed sat up. Turning to Ormerod as if he had known him for years he said in French-English: 'Get your clothes on you.'

Ormerod stared at him. The man looked amazingly like a baby in the swathes of dressing. He had a young, puffy face and blue eyes. Ormerod glanced towards Bailey, already feel-ling somehow ashamed at his cheating. Fortunately, Bailey was dozing. Like a man who knows he is descending into the chaos of a nightmare but can do nothing to stop himself, Ormerod rose from the bed and removed his clothes from the bedside locker. Hardly taking his gaze from the bandaged

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man in the next bed he began to dress. An afternoon somno
lence had settled on the ward. Sunshine through the big win
dows lay unrolled on the floor and across the beds. The bandaged man said: 'I am Henri. Do as I tell you.' He was putting his own clothes on now, a hospital blue jacket and
trousers and a grubby white shirt. For some obscure reason
Ormerod wondered if he would take his bandages off. He did,
quickly releasing them and unwinding them like some resur
rected Egyptian mummy.

'Lock the door at the end of the ward,' ordered Henri. 'We have arranged as far as possible that nobody will interrupt, but we don't know. You have no gun?'

'No, I thought it would look silly in here.'

Henri did not appreciate the cynicism. 'They will bring guns for us,' he said. He turned and looked out of the window to where the green lawns of Bagnoles stretched down to the shore of a calm water that reflected the cruising October clouds. 'This,' he said with satisfaction, 'is the perfect sniper's window.'

'Oh, Christ,' said Ormerod quickly, realizing fully what they
were going to do. God, he would have given half his expected
life to be out of that place then. But he was trapped with it. He stared at Henri with a mild misery. I said lock the door,' repeated the Frenchman.

'We're not going to get away with this business,' Ormerod
whispered desperately, as if he had to make some sort of protest.

'Do not be afraid, my friend,' smiled Henri. 'There is nothing to stop us.'

The Frenchman began pulling his shirt over his head. He looked through the aperture of the neck at Ormerod and stared at him as if surprised he was still there. 'Monsieur,' he said, hard and quiet, 'go to the door.'

Ormerod looked stupidly about him. Their rising and their
conversation had all but gone unnoticed. He walked unsteadily to the ward door, the terrible feeling of the thing beginning to grasp him. He closed it with casual carefulness and slotted the bolt. He turned and saw Henri regarding him with suspicion. He nodded as if to say, 'I've done it,' then shuffled

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back between the beds. Henri was standing watching the door as if expecting someone. 'My friend,' he said, when Ormerod was near enough, 'today you are with us or you are against us. We do not need a referee. Be careful. Because either we will shoot you or the Germans will shoot you. Or perhaps both.'

A light jumped into his eyes and Ormerod saw that Jean Le Blanc had come through the door at the other end of the ward, his head wobbling like that of a carnival giant. Marie-Thérèse entered after him and then a third figure, a man unknown to Ormerod. This man carried a case in which Ormerod guessed immediately was a rifle with a telescopic sight. He was right.

The intruders had still caused little stir in the ward. Most of the patients still dozed. Now Marie-Thérèse closed the door behind her and called out: 'Will everyone please pay attention.' She said it first in English and then in French. The wounded men awoke, grumbling at the interruption. Some sat up to see what was happening, some had to remain flat. Ormerod watched Bailey wake and painfully turn his good eye onto the group. He saw the unique expression of single sur
prise in the eye as the young man saw he had dressed and was
with the intruders.

'What's happening?' he asked Ormerod. 'What's going on?'

'We are friends,' Marie-Thérèse said loudly so all the ward
could hear. 'Comrades. We have come in the name of France and England and their allies. All we ask is that you stay where you are in your beds and do not move or try to interfere. Everything will be done quickly and nobody here will suffer. It is all part of the war for which you have been wounded.'

While she spoke Jean Le Blanc had gone to the window. He looked down onto the lakeside and a satisfaction came into his face. Marie-Thérèse walked to Ormerod and handed him a pistol. He felt almost ashamed as she gave it to him and he let it drag down by his side. He could see Bailey staring at him disbelievingly with awful lonely eye. Marie-Thérèse knew he needed to be told. 'It is all right,' she whispered. 'It is the correct thing, Dodo.'

It was too late to argue anyway. Henri had also been given

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a gun and had stationed himself by the door through which the group had arrived. He sat at the bottom of a bed nursing a pistol and watching the stairs outside. The man who had carried the case now undid it and brought out the rifle in two parts, plus a tripod and, lastly, after he had assembled the the other components, a telescopic sight. He briefly laid the sight on the bed that had been Ormerod's and the Englishman looked at it with slightly more apprehension than he looked at the rifle.

Bailey suddenly started to get out of bed, only slowly, but it was enough to make Jean Le Blanc turn on him and point his pistol. The young man sat down. He was ashen, his eye strangely seeming to be in the centre of his head. 'But you can't,' he whispered. 'You can't shoot anyone here. Not
here.'

'You will see,' said Le Blanc. 'Return to your sheets.'

'Who?' Bailey said, not appearing to have heard. 'Who is it?'

'Bailey, son, get back into bed, please,' pleaded Ormerod.

A man sat up abruptly across the ward. 'I know,' he said in a strangled way. He had a dressing around his throat. 'They're after the general! The man who came in here.'

'He is a German,' snapped Marie-Thérèse. 'Stay in your bed.'

Ormerod was looking wildly about. The patients were moving and muttering.

"The general?' Bailey was aghast. 'You can't. For Christ's sake, this is a military hospital. You can't do that
here,
I tell you.'

'This hospital is covered by The Hague Convention,' said a British officer across the room. His words were slow, and said with difficulty. 'They have kept to it. So must you. I am ordering you to leave. Get out!'

Jean Le Blanc raised his pistol but Ormerod pushed him quickly and fiercely aside and hurried across to the man in the bed. 'Listen, sir,' he said, 'for fuck's sake shut up. He'll kill you. He's a right bastard, believe me.'

The man appeared not to hear or even see him. He was staring at the gun they were assembling at the window. He moved forward. Ormerod felt Le Blanc raise the pistol al-

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most at his ear. He rushed forward, stumbled against the British officer, clumsily embracing him. The man also had a wounded leg and it gave way under him. With Ormerod still clutching him he staggered back almost comically and sat down heavily between the beds, bringing Ormerod with him. They lay on the polished floor, Ormerod on top. 'Sorry,' he gasped. 'Sorry about the leg.'

He got to his knees and looked around. Jean Le Blanc still had his pistol levelled at the British officer. Ormerod turned and raised his own gun at Le Blanc. 'Shoot him and I shoot you,' he said simply.