Jack Ludlow: A Bitter Field

He had only one aim: to see if it was indeed a tail, or if he was being overcautious; that was answered within minutes when those big twin headlights abreast the low-slung black body appeared once more in the rear-view mirror. Cal immediately killed his speed, noting that the tail slowed as well. They were definitely being followed, but by whom?

What he had said to Peter had to be true: it was unlikely to be official, and not just for the value of a car that cost as much as a Rolls-Royce. If it was the French equivalent of MI5, seeking to enforce their national embargo on weapons destined for Spain, they would have been much more professional and thus harder to spot.

Such people knew their job and they would not be daft enough to assign one very obvious tail — and to find out what? The only thing could be the location of the weapons with a view to seizing them, which meant they had to be as aware of his intentions as his passenger.

‘Where is my cargo, Peter?’

‘Not a clue, old chap.’

‘Take a guess,’ Cal responded with obvious impatience.

A sideways look showed Peter smiling. ‘The last place I had it pegged for certain was at the railhead in Marans.’

‘From which you deduced what?’

‘Seemed an obvious place to transfer to the road, old boy, given it runs all the way to a major port on the Bay of Biscay and the trains running into said port are risky when it comes to being searched — which could be bad news if your manifest and papers don’t pass muster. All it would take is the opening of one case to establish you are not shipping tractor parts.’

‘Not a barge?’

‘No,’ Peter admitted ruefully when he realised what he was being told. ‘You fooled me on that one.’

‘La Rochelle was no more than presumption, then?’

‘I flatter myself when I admit the answer to that is yes. With you involved and Spain the destination it had to be a Biscay port and Nantes and Bordeaux are too big, while Rochefort, the only other alternative, is an active naval base and too risky.’

‘Will you stop being so damn smug and deduce what would happen if the French knew as much as you?’

‘I have no indication that they did.’

‘That’s not what I asked, but if they had they would not need to chase us around the countryside, would they?’

The answer came with a languor that riled Cal. ‘You refer, of course, to the Johnny who I assume is still following us.’

‘You know, Peter, sometimes your sangfroid can be a pain in the arse. Now do me a favour and use your not-inconsiderable brain. I am reasoning that whoever is following can’t be official. Discuss.’

‘It is sometimes very pleasant, old boy, to get under your skin.’

‘But?’

Peter’s chin hit his chest as he ran over things in his mind.

‘If the Frogs knew as much as I did, and with vastly superior resources, they would know exactly where your weapons are and could pick you up when they liked, whatever mode of transport you used. In fact, they might have done so already to ensure they did not miss you, unless of course, they are waiting to find out who is either helping you or who in the port has taken your filthy Spanish lucre.’

‘In which case they would not allow themselves to be spotted?’

‘You would have no idea they were even watching.’

‘My thinking too, which leads me to the same conclusion as before. Whoever is on our tail cannot be either the local plod or the Deuxieme Bureau.’

‘Then who?’

‘Ask me another,’ Cal replied, before falling silent for a few seconds. ‘We need to stop and see if we can flush them out. There’s a small town ahead called Dompierre-sur-Mer.’

‘Rather a shortage of the mer, old chap, wouldn’t you say?’ Peter responded, still in that laconic way, looking around the crop-filled fields to either side of what had once probably been ancient marshland reclaimed from the sea. ‘But we lack an alternative, given there’s nowhere to hide around here that I can spot.’

‘In this case the best place to hide is in the open.’ Cal nodded ahead to the first building at the edge of what was a far from substantial settlement, then looked at his watch. ‘Time I bought you that meal you were so keen on.’

‘I doubt this hamlet we are approaching has the kind of treat I had in mind.’

‘Which was?’

‘The Connaught or the Savoy,’ Peter ventured, ‘perhaps with the freedom of the wine list.’

‘I fear you’ll have to settle for peasant fare, old chum, and the vin du pays, so, find somewhere to conceal that gun and prepare to reprise your “Englishman abroad” act.’

Dompierre was typical of thousands of small French towns, a rundown and desolate sort of place that had not been on the coast for centuries, with no industry, living off the produce extracted from the surrounding fields, and a few buildings, none of any size and mainly looking in need of repair, the whole clustered round the local church. It had the air of so many places in rural France — somewhere time had passed by or never even discovered.

Yet it was a working hamlet, it still contained a few of the necessary small shops in a central square dominated by the ubiquitous war memorial to the dead of the Guerre Mondiale: a butcher, a baker, both just closing for the two hours of lunch, a still-open newsagent which was also a tabac, as well as a small brasserie with outside seating under a sun-bleached awning advising the benefits of Ricard pastis.

Cal parked the Simca near the brasserie but in the shade, attracting a few curious glances from those still about. The reaction to the two-seater Hispano-Suiza J12, as it glided in seconds after, low and sleek, the engine purring, actually made the locals stop and stare; it was a rich man’s motor in a place were such things were rarely to be seen.

Parked well away from the Simca in full sunlight, hood still up, engine off, it just sat there for what seemed an age. By the time the passenger got out, Cal and Peter were sitting under the awning, awaiting the beers they had ordered.

He was tall, exuded even at a distance an air of arrogance, and looked to be in his early twenties, broad-shouldered with blond curls, in a double-breasted light-grey suit of a good cut, somewhat crumpled from having been sat in a hot car, that over an open-necked big-collared shirt.

He stood by the open door looking around like a tourist, at the church, the Calvary cross of the war memorial and the now-shuttered shops, though it was obvious that his sweeping looks were taking in the two men he had followed.

Then his lips moved and whatever he said brought out the driver, a shorter fellow, who looked even younger with his brown cowlick hair, dressed in a leather blouson over a dark-blue shirt; he also made a point of not looking in their direction as he fetched out a beret to cover his head.

‘Cal, I have no idea who these two clowns are, but they are rank amateurs.’

Peter imparted that soft opinion as the owner of the brasserie placed the two draught beers on their table, looking up longingly just after he did so towards the Hispano-Suiza, which had Cal engaging him in a conversation of the kind people indulge in who love cars — the beauty of the lines, the size of the engine, which was a V12, and the potential speed such a vehicle could achieve, the conclusion that not only was the fellow driving it a lucky man, he was, along with his passenger, also a complete stranger.

Then he asked for some food and, with Peter’s assent, agreed to a couple of omelettes and a side salad.

‘I have never understood this obsession with motor vehicles,’ Peter said, when the owner had gone; he had some French, but nothing like the fluency of Cal Jardine. ‘But I take it we have fixed these fellows as not being local.’