Pursuit of Passy Read online

  ******

  Towards nine o'clock that evening it grew cool again, and as dusk fell I saw Madame Cormier enter the farmyard carrying the ladder.

  She stood directly below the dovecote and said in a low voice, “You can come down now. I think it is quite safe.”

  I crept out of my little hole, thinking for the hundredth time that day that I'd rather be Peter Claydon than a French pigeon, thank you very much, and climbed down the ladder.

  “You see,” said Madame calmly, “I told you they would never find you there.”

  “You were marvellous,” I said. “I can never thank you enough. But I thought they were going to search the dovecote. You just managed to stop them in time.”

  “Yes,” she said. “He was a difficult man, that one. I was frightened a little too, but they have gone now and I don't think they will come back.”

  We walked into the house and she gave me a plateful of hot stew. Food was never more welcome.

  The children were in bed and she sat opposite me drinking coffee and discussing the war. She must have been an attractive woman once, I thought, with her clear skin and white teeth, but worry, strain and over-work had left their mark and though I don't believe she was over thirty-five her face was lined and worn as though she were quite old. Nevertheless, her mind was young and she was a brave and intelligent woman, quite at a loss to understand the disasters that had befallen France. Only the previous day Petain had requested an armistice and she kept asking over and over again; what would England do now; could we hold out alone against the Boches? I think she held the view of most French people at that time that we could not possibly last out the summer and though I told her that we should fight on whatever happened I don't think she really believed me.

  I told her of my intention to leave in the morning and asked if she could provide me with some clothes to replace my own filthy uniform. She produced a suit of her husband's which fitted moderately well—Cormier was evidently about my height though considerably broader in the beam—but the general effect when I tried it on was not too bad. The cut and pattern of the cloth would have caused a few raised eyebrows in Sackville Street, but it certainly changed me into a typical Frenchman which was all to the good.

  We nearly had a row when I suggested payment for the suit. “No,” she said. “Don’t spoil everything. I am very happy that you should have it.”

  However, I was determined to give her something for I knew their income must be meagre in any case and would soon get much worse, and I had been given a very large sum of money in London. It was only when I pointed out that it was the British Government's money and not mine that she showed signs of relenting and finally I managed to leave her a sum that would help them through a number of difficult days ahead. It seemed the least I could do.

  Towards midnight she rose to show me to.my room, when I had a sudden idea and asked if she had a wireless. Having lost touch with the outer world for twenty-four hours I was very anxious to hear the midnight news from London.

  She led me through into the next room where a wireless set was standing on a small table in the corner and she switched it on.

  It was a lucky thought, because that afternoon Mr. Churchill had made his famous speech of defiance in a packed House of Commons; he had broadcast it again later and now we heard a recording of it.

  The memory of that evening in the little French farm will remain clear in my memory till I die, Madame Cormier and I standing beside an old wireless and listening with feelings that I cannot describe to the one voice in Europe that still defied the German might. It was a deep voice and rather harsh, and it struck me that the speaker must be very tired because I noticed that he made a number of small slips and then corrected himself.

  “What General Weygand called the Battle of France is now over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. He knows that he will have to break us on this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad sunlit uplands; but if we fail then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister and perhaps more protracted by the light of a perverted science.

  “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.' ”

  I turned to Madame. She was crying very quietly. I think I felt rather the same way myself.

  “You see,” I said, “England will fight on.”