The Complete Flying Officer X Stories (23 page)

At Toulon, which he evidently reached in the July of that year, Poirot demanded to be demobilised. It was his right. But the authorities, who seemed to have had more than a suspicion of the qualities that lay behind that extremely stolid and phlegmatic face, thought quite otherwise. They were very much in need of men like Poirot. “We need you in North Africa,” they said. It may have been this action of theirs that upset Poirot. He may have reasoned that
escaping from Nazis, defending casinos, hiding in houses, bicycling across France and swimming rivers, deserved a slight reward. The reward that Poirot wanted was quite simple. He wanted freedom. Unfortunately the authorities at Toulon had none of it to give away.

But instead, they said in Africa, we will give you the Croix de Guerre. I do not know what kind of a medal the Croix de Guerre is. Possibly it is a very nice medal. Possibly Poirot was very honoured to have it. He does not say. He does not fill in the emotional details of the story. But it seemed to me that he acted with a curious kind of sardonic frivolity for a man who is pleased to be decorated.

What is quite evident is that Poirot had decided that he did not like the Vichy authorities at all. The day when the medals were to be presented to Poirot and his comrades was, as I imagine it always is with the French, a very ceremonial affair: Poirot, who looks so unimaginative and who does not bother with details, did not describe the scene, but it is not hard to see the Glen Martins lined up about the track in the African sun, the blue and braid of the pilots' uniforms as they wait at attention, the glitter of the big wigs, the ceremonial kisses of presentation. Poirot does not describe, either, his emotions at this scene. But they, too, were probably very direct and very clear. For Poirot was probably the most nervous man of all.

After the presentation of medals the squadrons flew over the drome, giving one of those serene and ordered displays which are part of the ceremonial. Thinking of their flying over the drome, I like to think also of those who were watching below the high officials, the caps of gold braid, the rows of medals, the distinguished uplifted faces watching the circling planes. Poirot does not fill in these details, for the simple reason that he was too high and too
occupied to notice them. I like to think very much of the serene solemnity of the official faces, of Poirot flying above them, rather like a rude Donald Duck who does not know his ceremonial manners. I like above all to imagine their faces, their French volubility, their indignant dignity and their final horror as Poirot at last turned his plane away, helped by a navigator and a radio operator who valued freedom, and set his course for Gibraltar.

I like too the way in which Poirot ends his story, phlegmatically, briefly, unexcitedly, as you would expect him to end it.

“C'est tout,” he says.

The weather was very hot and almost every evening the two privates, Jackson and Butcher, came down from the camp to fish in the lake below the chestnut woods. On most evenings the distant double stutter of gunfire shook the light, tranquil air from the direction of the sea.

At one end of the lake the water slid away over a weir, like a curve of glass, under a wooden bridge, splintering with a great sound on green rocks below, but at the farther end, in the evening shadow of high rows of poplar, the water was black and gold between large islands of yellow water-lily, and the weir could never be heard.

For months the two men had been bored. Sometimes Butcher, a little broad-faced Cockney with stubby hands that held the rod heavily, would say, “To think I fell over meself to join up, and now all I do is fish for perishin' gudgeon.”

“Don't worry,” Jackson would say. “It'll come.”

It was Jackson, a young office-clerk with dark hair and refined features, who was the fisherman; Butcher came for company. Sometimes they caught roach of half a pound or more, and in the late evenings they laid worms on the bottom in the hope of tench. At first Butcher rarely caught anything larger than two-ounce perch, and never struck soon enough, so that his fish gorged the hook. With his clumsy stubby hands he could never get the hook cleanly out again, and the fish would leap and bleed in his hands, until at last Jackson came to his help, disgorging the hook with quick clean fingers.

“Sometimes I wonder if you'll ever make a fisherman,” Jackson said. “Strike sooner!”

“Did I ask to be a fisherman,” Butcher said. “I'm supposed to be a soldier.”

“Teach you patience,” Jackson said. “That's one thing a soldier's supposed to learn.”

In all ways they were very unlike each other; yet as the summer went on they were everywhere together. Sometimes as they sat by the lake, watching the scarlet caps of the floats lying dead in the dark pools among the bright yellow lilies, they talked about home. Jackson had a girl in Coventry. “I tried to teach her to fish,” he said.

“Then you're barmy,” Butcher said. “That's what you are. Barmy. What d'ye think girls are for!”

“Don't talk so much,” said Jackson. “Strike! You got one. Strike!”

Butcher struck high into the air, the empty hook tangling wildly among gut and line.

“Blasted tiddler.”

“Teach you to talk softer.”

So gradually they learned to talk in lowered voices. In this seemingly more intimate way they talked about the girl in Coventry and how she and Jackson would be married and how they would have a fish-pond in the garden where Jackson could keep live-bait in readiness for the pike season in winter. They talked about Camberwell and Butcher's mother there and how Butcher “allus took the old gal out Saturday nights and give her a treat. Fourpennorth o'fish and a glass of stout. Sort o' fishing where you git summat for your money.”

“Every Saturday?”

“Every Saturday! Wet or fine, winter or summer—four-pennorth o' the best for the old lady. Poor old gal'd die if I never took her.”

“Girl-friend too?”

“They ain't no girl-friend, they ain't no girl-friend.”

“You bet.”

“Strike me bloody honest they ain't no girlfriend. Jis' me and the old lady.”

“Nice home boy.”

“For gawd's sake” Butcher said, “don't talk about home.”

All summer, except for the stutter of guns, the evenings were wonderfully tranquil; the water was still and glassy until the hour before darkness, when the rises of the little fish were like a light sprinkle of silver and the lollop of great pike split the water into swooning circles that capsized the lily-leaves and set the reeds by the lakeside flapping and trembling. But in July there was a new sound.

Flying high, turning in the evening sunlight like minute celestial birds, Messerschmitts and sometimes Dorniers and Heinkels began to come over from the coast. The low sound of their coming would be broken in turn by another sound, the moan of battle-dives, and that sound in turn by another, the crackle of machine-guns ripping with brief bursts of fire the sleepy summer sky.

And below, the two soldiers, shading their eyes, would look up. They would look up until their necks ached or their eyes were partially blinded by the setting sun. Once they grew very excited. Planes began to dive lower and lower over the woods beyond the lake, falling and moaning, with protracted bursts of fire. Jackson and Butcher left their lines in the water and ran from under the willows and along the lake-path, out onto into an open space of meadow beyond the last poplars. The battle moaned and roared out of sight, screened by the high belt of summer-trees, and at last was silent. When the two soldiers got back to the lake, Butcher's float was far under and out and a pound perch had gorged both worm and hook. He landed it and was happy.

“Nice fish,” Jackson said. “Well make something out of you yet.”

“Hark at him, hark at him! Make something of me! That's a fish, that is. A fish.”

A little later the air battle sprang up again, and as it moaned and stuttered beyond the trees the two soldiers once more left rods and ran along the lake-path. They watched for a short time and finally when the roar of planes had finished they came back. And once again Butcher's float was under and far out, and once more a pound perch had gorged the hook.

Butcher ripped the hook clumsily from the fish's mouth and strutted about the bank like a peacock, regardless of bloody hands.

“Coming on,” Jackson said.

“Coming on, coming on! Hark at the man, hark at him! I tell you what I'll do. I'lll hook a ten pounder and have it stuffed and give it to you and your girl for a wedding present. You can hang it in the front room.”

Jackson laughed and was pleased, and Butcher felt very happy, not only because of the fish, but because it felt good to please Jackson.

One evening, when Jackson was taking guard duty, Butcher went fishing alone. But after a time he knew that it was not the same alone. He realised that it was not the same, and never could be the same, without Jackson. He sat all evening brooding with a sort of light despondency, watching the float poised on the darkening water like a cherry, listening casually to the planes coming in from the coast, and to the sound of power-dives and gun-fire. But now he no longer bothered to glance up at something that, once terrible and exciting, had become part of the war's monotony. He thought of Jackson, the girl, and how they would be married. He looked up to Jackson, a man of a certain education and class, with refined features, a friendly well-spoken voice. All his life he had never had much use for girls. He stuck to the old lady and felt that a pal was good enough for company. But when he thought of his London pals, the boys he had drunk with and played billiards with and sometimes dog-raced with before the war, he realised that Jackson was very different. In battle, he had heard an older soldier say, it didn't matter very much if you knew you were with somebody who wouldn't let you down. And that, somehow, was how he felt about Jackson. For Jackson, if ever the war did begin, he'd go through bloody hell.

Towards darkness he caught a roach of eight or nine ounces, striking late, so that the hook went far down the gullet; he made a clumsy mess of disgorging, longing for the presence of Jackson's neat light fingers. The catching of the fish had no excitement, and soon afterwards he packed up his things and went back to camp, the muddy odour of fish and blood strong on his hands.

The next evening he and Jackson were fishing together again, and he felt once more the keen pleasure of the evening, the silence, the rise of fish far out on the tranquil water. The coloured reflections of poplar and chestnut were spired for long motionless intervals in the depths of the lake, and as the sun crossed behind the two fishermen and began to go down they could see black flotillas of great pike lying shallow above the shadowy weeds in the clear golden water.

They sat for a long time without speaking.

“Quiet times!” Butcher said. “No fish, no air-raid, no conversation.”

“I had a letter from the girl,” Jackson said.

“Everything O.K.? Nothing wrong?”

“She wants to get married,” Jackson said.

“Mean she asked you?”

“No, but she keeps hinting. She says all her friends are getting married. She says they get married and then get rooms in a cottage near the camp where their husbands are stationed. They're all doing it she says.”

“Well, what's stopping you?”

“Because I wanted to get married properly,” Jackson said. “I wanted the house finished. I wanted to go to Switzerland for the honeymoon. I wanted it done properly.”

“Well, there's a bloody war on,” Butcher said, “so why don't you do it first and think about it afterwards and stop worrying about properly.”

“Butch, you don't understand.”

“Understand? Understand! What sort of girl is she, anyway?”

“Ah,” Jackson said, “you never saw her, did you?”

He undid the breast-pocket of his battle-dress and took out a brown wallet. From the wallet he began to sort out a pile of snapshots, giving them one by one to Butcher, who saw on each of them a picture of the same fair hatless girl, in a light summer dress, with charming eyes filled with restless merriment.

Presently Jasckson seemed embarrassed and got up; he said something about it being very hot and how it wouldn't be a bad idea if he walked down to the pub and brought back a bottle or two of beer. “Look at the snaps while I'm gone,” he said. He rested his rod in the reeds and walked down the path by the lake. As he went air-raid sirens began to wail mournfully from all directions and Butcher called “There she goes!” and Jackson, not troubling to turn, waved his hand.

Butcher sat for a long time looking at the pictures of Jackson's girl. He saw Jackson and the girl leaning with their backs against the iron railings of a seaside promenade; it was sunny and they were laughing and Jackson was wearing white flannels. He saw them in another against a background of a tennis court, dark summer trees and a club house; again it was sunny and again they were laughing and again Jackson was wearing white flannels. In another he could see the girl alone lying by the banks of a stream; on the grass lay the white cloth of a picnic and again the sunlight struck everything into a dazzling prominence of light and shadow, and again the girl was laughing.

Butcher had never been to the seaside; he had never played tennis and had never worn white flannels; nor did he remember ever seeing people look so happy. As he sat looking at the pictures, paying little attention to the floats lying on the darkening water or to the sounds of bomber and fighters in pursuit somewhere far above him in the clear evening sky, he felt happy himself, happy because he knew Jackson, because he had Jackson's confidence, above all because he was Jackson's friend. The bloody war had done that much good anyway; it had given him Jackson. And suddenly it not only seemed very strange, the life of seaside promenades, men in white flannels, tennis, picnics by the river, the thought of getting married properly, and honeymoons in Switzerland, but he thought he knew how Jackson felt about it. He felt that Jackson had gone away not because he really wanted two bottles of beer, but because it was hell to be so far away from the girl and the eternally charming laughing eyes and all the eternally sunny life that lay behind.