Tug of War (7 page)

‘None that I can discover.’ The doctor stirred uneasily. ‘Look – he’s not a new arrival, you understand. This is not the first hospital he has fetched up at since
repatriation. We are just the first ones to interest ourselves in identifying and solving his problems. He has been passed along, shedding, doubtless, any information . . . clues . . . clothing . .
. at each move. I’ve attempted to back-track but it’s hopeless. I’ve got as far as an asylum in the Ardennes in 1922. Records start there. It’s thought he was a late
repatriation from Germany. They merely record him as a French soldier sent back without papers or identity. He was wearing the usual German-issue undergarments with a threadbare French army
greatcoat on top. No insignia on it and, of course, it may not even have been his. The only clue – and it may be misleading – was a piece of card with German lettering on it spelling
out the name “Reims”. That one word was the instigation for the original local search. Though you are aware that the net has been spread wider thanks to the publicity afforded by the
national newspapers. The man is aphasic. Mute. Until the nightmare no one had ever heard his voice. A typical symptom of war neurosis.

‘It’s a sorry case, Commander, but, as I would guess you know from experience –’ he glanced briefly at Joe’s head wound – ‘not at all unusual.’
After the slightest pause he said confidentially, ‘Can’t help noticing that your surgery was not done by the hands of an expert. Hope you don’t mind my mentioning it. If you would
like to have someone unpick that, um, attempt and try again I can put you in touch with a friend in Paris who would rise to the challenge.’

Joe smiled his thanks.

The doctor pressed on. ‘Three hundred and fifty thousand Frenchmen, Commander, were declared missing in combat during the four years of war. Blown to bits, vaporized, buried under tons of
earth, some just wandered off quietly perhaps. Leaving behind in limbo countless grieving relatives. And these late releases from prisoner-of-war camps have cruelly led their waiting families to
nurse a false hope that one day their loved one will be restored to them. People whose dear ones disappear find it genuinely impossible to believe that they will not come marching through the door
at any minute. So much grief, so much yearning, and never an end to it.’

‘You touched a nerve, I think, with your appeal to the public?’

Varimont sighed and raised eyebrows to the ceiling. ‘Opened up a hornets’ nest might be more apt,’ he said. ‘Can I say I regret taking such action, I wonder?’

‘Not if you find this poor man a loving home, monsieur,’ said Dorcas. ‘If you can do that, it surely will have been worth the effort. I think it’s a noble and worthwhile
thing that you are doing.’

Varimont was startled by the interruption but charmed by the sentiment. Joe was surprised too, by the ease with which Dorcas had spoken in perfectly acceptable French.

‘Mademoiselle has a slight accent of the Midi, I detect?’ said Varimont.

‘My mother is from the south, monsieur. My father is English but we always spend our summers in Provence,’ Dorcas explained.

‘The nightmare,’ Joe picked up hurriedly. ‘Has it been repeated?’

‘Yes. Once more. After the first explosion I did wonder whether to administer a barbiturate. Calm him down. But my second thought was to let it flow on and camp outside his door to catch
any recurrence from the start.’

‘And did our man have anything further to add?’

‘Look here – we could go on calling him “our man . . . this poor chap”, we could even refer to him as G27 which is the number on his door, or we could call him – as
I do – Thibaud.’

‘Thibaud?’

‘One of the first Counts of Champage. Very popular name hereabouts. Also the name of my great-uncle whom he much resembles.’

‘Perfect,’ said Joe. ‘Tell me what Thibaud had to say for himself.’

‘The same short scenario played and replayed. I was able to write down the words – excuse the spelling!’ He inclined his head to Dorcas, drawing her into the discussion.
‘We do not all have a facility for languages.’ He handed over a sheet from his folder and continued to talk as Joe read it.

‘His dream was accompanied by actions as well as words. He sat up on his bed with a shout of alarm then leapt up and strode about the room, gesticulating madly, quarrelling you’d
say, with someone he could see very clearly but who was invisible to me, watching from the door. Then he sank to his knees and screamed out in English: “For God’s sake, man! Don’t
do this! Forgive me! Forgive me!” The effect was very disturbing – very . . . theatrical. Does what I’ve written make sense?’

‘Certainly does,’ said Joe. ‘This is an Englishman begging for his life.’

‘With some success,’ said Dorcas thoughtfully, ‘as he’s still with us.’

Varimont was silent for a moment then said hesitantly, ‘Yes, you’d say so. Begging for his life. But, Commander, the odd thing is that his subsequent actions belied the words. He
pleaded for mercy with those words, in perfect English as far as I am any judge, but then he acted out a quite extraordinary scene.’

The doctor got to his feet and moved to the centre of the room. The short, fastidious, suited figure should have produced the comical effect of a Charlie Chaplin movie as he launched into his
mime but Joe and Dorcas watched in growing horror as the meaning of his gestures became clear.

Eyes rolling in a pantomime of rage, Varimont lifted his right foot and kicked out viciously at something (or someone) unseen three feet above the ground. With a snarl, he reached across his
body and drew a sword from its scabbard with his right hand, then, holding it up in front of his face with a two-handed grip on the hilt in a hideous semblance of a priestly gesture, he plunged it
downwards again and again.

Chapter Six

As they made their way along darkening corridors, following the fast-moving figure of the doctor, Joe was aware of Dorcas scurrying along at his heels, staying much closer than
she would normally have done. The architecture would have detained him in other circumstances, its massive Gothic arches and stone-flagged corridors demanding attention. An ancient monastic
building of some sort, he would have guessed, which, by being incorporated at a later date into the structure of the town’s defences, seemed to have survived the bombardment. Though not
entirely unscathed. Distantly, he heard the hammering and shouting of a building team at work on repairs and found he was reassured by the sounds of ordinary life going on in this disconcerting
place.

Varimont turned a corner and walked down a narrower corridor, pausing finally in sepulchral gloom in front of a stout oak door. Before he could insert his key in the lock Joe commented:
‘Formidable defences. You must reassure me, Varimont, that your Thibaud presents no danger to visitors.’

‘Oh, none at all. These precautions are for his protection. Be reassured, Commander . . . mademoiselle. When he is not suffering a nightmare, he is calm itself. He sits, sometimes stands,
looking into an internal distance. He has a slight reaction to some of his visitors. Some he obviously likes and he expresses this by reaching out to touch their arm, very briefly. Do not be
alarmed should he do this, mademoiselle. It is a sign perhaps of his returning humanity.’

‘What does he do if he takes a dislike to someone?’ Dorcas thought it prudent to ask.

‘Rather embarrassing, I’m afraid! He climbs into his bed, pulls the blanket over his head and goes to sleep. Come and meet him.’

There were chairs in the sparsely furnished room but they didn’t sit. There were brightly coloured posters on the grey walls but the visitors paid no more attention to the scenes of the
Châteaux of the Loire than did the occupant of the room. They trooped in and stood awkwardly in front of the patient in a line watching him. Joe had once had to escort a terrified young lady
from the cinema, passing in front of a row of people absorbed by the last reel of
The Phantom of the Opera.
Their faces had shown much the same expression as the one he was now studying with
attention. The man’s focus was elsewhere and someone passing through his field of vision was a momentary annoyance, no more. The doctor chattered on, behaving as though his patient perfectly
understood him. In the middle of a sentence and out of joint with the doctor’s speech, the man suddenly reached out and stroked his arm twice. At once, Varimont responded with the same
gesture. Treating this as the establishment of some kind of communication, he drew Joe forward and introduced him.

Thibaud stared through him, his startling blue eyes expressionless, and made no movement. He must at one time have been an exceptionally handsome man, Joe thought. Even the distortion of the
jaw, the pallor and the thinness of the flesh could not quite quench an impression of nobility. Joe spoke a few hearty and meaningless sentences and then floundered, running into the quicksand of
indifference. Picking up Joe’s hesitation, Varimont then introduced Dorcas.

To both men’s surprise, she stepped forward without hesitating to stand directly in front of him. She made no attempt to speak. She put out a hand and gently stroked his cheek in greeting.
Then she reached into her pocket and produced a rose-pink biscuit, one of the biscuits they bake in Reims to nibble with their champagne, Joe noticed. She must have brought it with her from the
cake shop, he thought, as there had been no such confection on offer in the director’s office.

They watched as she snapped it in two, releasing a seductive scent of vanilla and a cloud of icing-sugar, and, murmuring, offered half to Thibaud. Joe felt Varimont, standing close by him, tense
as his patient turned his head slightly. He allowed her to open his hand and then close it again over the biscuit. Dorcas carefully moved his hand towards his mouth and he began to eat. Having
swallowed the first half, he opened his hand and stretched it out. Dorcas gave him the second half and he crunched his way through that too, to her evident satisfaction. When he’d finished,
she tenderly whisked a crumb from his chin, crooning to him in a language Joe had not heard before.

And then Joe heard the doctor gasp in surprise. Thibaud turned to her and looked at her as though he saw her at last and he smiled. A smile of utter sweetness and childlike pleasure. And,
swallowing his emotion, Joe acknowledged that of the many smiles that would be directed at Dorcas in the coming years, this was the one above all she would remember. A hand came out again,
hesitantly, and reached for her shiny black head. He stroked her hair gently twice.

He outlined his plan and the director nodded in agreement. ‘Can’t do any harm and may tell us something. Carry on, Commander.’

Joe opened the door again and checked that the man had, as expected, settled back into his slumped posture, sideways on the bed, face turned away from the door.

In a loud and convincing rendering of an English sergeant major’s voice, he barked out an order.

‘Atte-e-e-nSHUN! On your feet, laddie! Stand by your bed!’ More parade ground commands followed and each was received blankly, with not the slightest twitch of a muscle. Joe went to
stand directly in front of him and snapped off a smart salute. ‘Reporting for duty, SIR!’ This time the voice was that of an officer. Impossible for a trained soldier of any rank not to
offer the reciprocal salute.

Not one joint of one finger moved in response. Joe looked keenly at the man’s features, awake to the slightest shifting expression.

And, finally, Joe’s efforts were rewarded. At last the face began to twitch. His nostrils flared. His upper lip trembled. His mouth opened. Thibaud gave a wide yawn, collapsed on to his
bed and pulled the blanket over his head.

Chapter Seven

Joe waited until he was navigating his course with certainty back across the city before he spoke to Dorcas.

‘So – the doctor’s efforts “will have been worth it” eh? And where, pray, did you learn to juggle the future perfect tense with such confidence, miss?’

He was aware that his question sounded ponderous but he was keen to hear her answer.

She left a silence just long enough to reprove him for his condescension. ‘Well, it
could
have been – if I’m allowed to use a conditional perfect without incurring
disapproval – in the stables of the Vicomte de Montcalme last year. Indeed, I do remember now that it was.’

‘Oooh! Hoity-toity! If you’re going to talk to me like an offended duchess – or worse, her lady’s maid – I’m going to throw you out on to the cobbles right
now. Are you going to elaborate on that throwaway remark?’

‘I don’t know where you get your information about me but you must have noticed that my father is a gentleman. He may well be a painter and an English eccentric but I can tell you
that these qualities make him very acceptable to aristocratic or rich people who live in the south. He can paint in whatever daubist style is fashionable but what you may not know is that
he’s a jolly good portrait painter in a traditional way. His productions are “lively and perceptive”, people say – and I’d add, more importantly, flattering. Last
summer he was painting the Vicomte de Montcalme and I used to go along with him and play . . .
ride
,’ she corrected herself hastily, ‘with the Vicomte’s children. Two sons
and a daughter. The oldest boy, Félicien, was my special friend. He’ll be seventeen now. I’m quite good at copying accents, which is a help. Orlando’s been summoned back
again to do an equestrian portrait of the Vicomtesse. I can’t wait to see them all again!’