William Boyd - The New Confessions

“No shit? When?”

“The Great War, 1914–18.” My God, I thought, that was only twenty-six years ago! I felt my age clamber onto my shoulders like the old man of the sea. Two Dogs was twenty-two.… We carried on talking as we drove through the hot shimmering landscape. I liked the big dark man with his wry educated views. We discussed The Equalizer further. The invasion. The Riviera. Two Dogs had just asked me if I had read Ernest Hemingway when the jeep broke down.

We had come down out of the hills and were in a small wooded valley with a dried-up riverbed running through it. The Argens Valley, I guessed, consulting my map. I calculated that we were about seven miles from Le Muy. The next bend in the road was obscured by a wood of cork oak trees, their stripped trunks a fresh ocher. Two Dogs checked the engine and said there was something wrong with the fuel pump. I looked at the map once more.

“There’s a small village up the road. If we are where we think we are.”

Two Dogs took his carbine out of the back of the jeep and we set off. It was midafternoon and now, deprived of the early cooling breeze of the jeep’s progress, we felt the full heat of the sun. After half a mile I wished I had left my helmet behind. I carried it dangling from its strap like a tureen and thought seriously about throwing it away. It was very quiet. The metallic sawing of the cicadas only emphasized the stillness.

The hamlet — Castel Dion — consisted of a few houses, some barns and a semiderelict church. There was no prospect of getting our fuel pump repaired here. We walked down the main street. A small patient crowd was gathered at the far end round an overturned lorry. As we approached, an old man advanced to meet us.

“ Écossais? ” he asked.

I looked at him in frank astonishment. “What?”

“ Américains ” Two Dogs said, pointing to the flag on my shoulder. The old man led us over to the lorry. The crowd of villagers parted to reveal several dead bodies, some badly scorched. They wore German uniforms but they were swarthy dark-skinned Arabs of the Ost Legion. They had been dead for hours, since the morning, probably. The spilled blood was black, coagulated like treacle. Flies were everywhere. The few inhabitants of Castel Dion seemed incapable of doing anything about this morbid visitation but stare.

“Who did this?” I asked the old man.

“ Sept Écossais ,” he said. “ Les paras .” Then he proceeded to describe the incident with many French gestures and sound effects. “ Paf! Pan-pan-pan! Boum! Claque! Finis. Bof! ” He dusted his palms.

I knew from the pre-invasion briefing that the only British troops taking part in Operation Dragoon were paratroopers, of the 2nd Independent Paratroop Brigade. I assumed some roving unit had been responsible for this ambush.… But were they Scottish paratroopers?… And I had no idea what to do about the dead men. I consulted Two Dogs, who suggested we get the jeep fixed first. I explained the problem to the old man, who led us back into the village and pointed to a road that led through some vineyards. Ask at the villa, he said. Two Dogs and I set off. Beyond the vineyards was an avenue of cypress trees and at the end of this two stone gateposts — no gate — with a name carved on them: VILLA GLADYS.

“Villa Gladys,” Two Dogs read. “Jesus. Does everything feel normal to you?” He looked at his carbine. “I mean, I’m a terrible shot.… Suppose it’s a trap?” He handed me the gun. “Why don’t you take this?”

“No, no. Absolutely not. I’m never touching guns again. I swore, after the last war — things that happened, you know.” I smiled uneasily. “Look, we’re miles from the fighting. I’m sure everything’s fine.” I was trying not to think of the last time I had fired a gun: 1917. The Salient. My drowning Ulsterman.

We walked cautiously through the gates and down the drive. Here and there discarded parachutes hung in the trees like huge limp flowers, or were draped over the rubble retaining walls of the vineyards like giant dying fungi. Then in a field we saw the splintered wreckage of half a dozen plywood Waco gliders. We turned a corner and there was the Villa Gladys, a small stone château with a roofless round tower. Laid out neatly on the edge of the graveled forecourt were five bodies covered in blankets. An old man holding a rake and an old woman looked aimlessly at them. When she saw us coming she ran into the house and emerged with another old man. Tall and erect, he wore a linen jacket, a shirt with a collar and tie, and baggy canvas trousers and sandals. A fine tracery of burst capillaries reddened his nose and cheeks. Wiry gray hair was badly combed over his bald head. If I hadn’t known better I would have assumed he was English.

“ Nous sommes Américains, ” I began.

“Thank Christ for that,” he said. “You come to take these chaps away? One of the gliders broke up pretty badly.”

“You’re English,” I said. “Good God!”

He looked at me shrewdly. “And you’re no Yank, I’ll wager. Not with that accent.”

“No,” I said. “No. I’m … I’m Scottish.” I don’t know why but I felt there was something baleful about my nationality that day. Six years in America hadn’t seen so many inquiries about it.

“We had some Scottish paras land on us the night before last,” he said. He gestured at the bodies. “One of them’s there. Fell right into my cucumber frames. Cut his throat. The other chappies cleared off before the gliders arrived.” He contemplated the wrecked machines. “Made a fucking awful mess of my vineyards.” He smiled. “Still, glad to see you. Perhaps you can help me with another problem.”

We wandered round the side of the château past an empty swimming pool. The old man told me his name was Peter Cavanaugh-Crabbe (two b ’s and an e ). He had bought Villa Gladys in 1902 and had lived there ever since.

“Didn’t you have any trouble with the Germans?”

“Not a jot. Not until this fellow turned up.”

We had stopped outside a small stone lean- to at the end of a barn. The door was bolted on the outside. From inside came a clucking of hens.

“There’s a Jerry inside,” Cavanaugh-Crabbe said, then, with a glance at Two Dogs, he lowered his voice and added, “Though he looks more like an Ay-rab to me. He crept in early this morning — after the eggs, no doubt. Old Lucien there”—he gestured at the rake-toting gardener—“spotted him and locked him in. I don’t think he’s got a gun, but you can’t be too careful.”

“What do you want us to do?”

“Take the bugger off my hands, of course. You are soldiers.”

“I’m not. I’m a journalist.”

“Well, what about this fellow? He’s got a gun.”

“Yes, well … you see, our jeep’s broken down.”

“Don’t worry about transport. I’ve got an old Citroën you can comandeer. Give me a chit, then just leave it in Le Muy.”

I looked at Two Dogs. He shrugged.

“All right, then,” I said. I went up to the door of the lean- to and shouted through it in German, “We are American soldiers. Come out with your hands up!”

A voice came from inside: “ Kamerad! ”

I unbolted the door and stepped back. Two Dogs covered the doorway with his carbine. A couple of hens sidled cautiously out into the sunlight. Then the soldier appeared. He was helmetless, in an ill-fitting, lumpy, bloodstained uniform. Egg albumen glistened thickly on the bristles of his chin. He was a small thick-set man, dark-skinned, with a narrow forehead. He blinked stupidly in the sunshine.

“ Hände hoch ,” I said. He complied instantly.