Who else was around that odd night? Some men standing with the metal on the quay looked our way in bafflement. There was no one who seemed a threat though, and that suited me in my adrenalin withdrawal.
A woman came over,
‘Oh Patrick, look at you.’
‘It’s only a leg wound,’ I said, young Patrick still more shocked than I was. ‘Can you patch him up?’
‘Sarah used to be a nurse, Sarah!’
Another woman ran over from her place of safety along the front to tend to Patrick. The drama of the town was taking place outside the playhouse now, and at last featuring some of those who deserved to be there – strong characters, not just those who acted so with guns.
‘Oh, but your friend.’
Wareing hadn’t moved, as I knew he wouldn’t from the moment I’d turned to see him earlier. Now, with the women beside me I couldn’t avoid it – I bent down to face him. He had caught his bullet in the neck, just above the collar of his impenetrable jacket. Two inches lower would still have left a mass of damage beneath the garment, might have meant a life in a wheelchair, but would at least have given him a chance of not dying in the instant of impact. I placed a hand on his shoulder; then pulled him up and hugged him.
The pilot of Kronkear’s yacht had swum to the beach and was standing sodden on the sand. He reminded me of the woman in Calais on the day I met the Major, fresh from the sinking raft and clutching her lifeless baby. We were all that woman, we had all been washed away, were all standing on a new shore half-dead and with only the clothes we stood up in.
I was supercharged right then though with righteous indignation, asking,
‘You speak English?’ (The Dutch pilot nodded.) ‘Then help them tidy up.’ I gestured to the people now coming out of hiding and beginning to do just that. Among them I saw the woman in whose garden we had found shelter earlier,
‘You killed him then,’ she stated to me, upon seeing Ashe.
‘Patrick killed him. Will people follow him?’
‘Yes, we’ll follow him. It’s Angela, by the way.’
‘Crofts,’ we shook.
‘Thank you for doing this.’
The two men who had been over on the quay by the scrap metal approached, arms raised and one throwing down his gun.
‘You’ll follow Patrick?’ I asked them, turning quickly between the two. ‘You’ll do exactly as he asked?’ (The pair nodded.) ‘Then keep your guns if you’ll need them.’ I turned to the women, ‘And there’s two more of Ashe’s men, the ones who went to fetch diesel. We sabotaged their truck, they could be back any minute.’
‘Oh, that pair’ll be fine once they know who’s in charge now,’ said Angela.
‘They’ll know where their bread is buttered,’ winked the other woman. Sarah the ex-nurse, with assistance, had moved Patrick to a house to have his wound seen to.
Out in the harbour just then was a whinnying of engines quickly changing direction, and the hollow sound of the tide slapping barge-sides as they spun – the sight of their boss’ burning cruiser was evidently enough to have the pilots of the seven other craft turn tail as quickly as the tails of heavy barges could be turned, and heading back out across the North Sea.
The sound reminded me of the boat I was to meet in the morning. I thought then of hauling Wareing up coast with me, but just as quickly realised that that would be pointless – I wasn’t getting him back to his family or to anywhere special, for I’d no idea where he came from. No, that town felt as much a home for him as Calais or Mur-du-Bretagne would be.
I’d found a perch on the kerb outside the closed up arcade. I sat there as the first glint of pre-dawn sun was rising – I must have been there for hours then, still shaking from the life I myself had taken. Around me I saw the townsfolk gather, to begin moving the dead and clearing the street; and then the sound of one of the tall windows that lined the Palais hall cracking open, a voice from inside saying, ‘Phew, what a stink.’
Angela came to sit beside me at the kerb,
‘We’ll give him a good burial,’ she said, seeing me looking at my partner laid out on the pavement nearby. She had two mugs of coffee, and passed me one; and then it clicked,
‘You brought Patrick one of these earlier.’ I remembered seeing him drink it. ‘You told him about us, and why we’d come.’
‘He’s hated Ashe ever since what happened with Tanya: just giving her away like… like a white slave trader.’
‘Patrick’s going to need to be on his feet and quickly: if he shows weakness this peace won’t hold.’
‘He’ll be fine. It will hold. You could always stay and help..?’
But we both knew I had to leave,
‘I need to call all this in, I need to put you on the map. Someone should be here within the week, and when they are they’ll have your and Patrick’s names as trusted contacts. You’ll need to tell them everything about Kronkear’s gang, and what Ashe was up to; and every detail you remember about Tanya, if she has any hope of being found.’
‘She was just drifting through, poor love, landed a job at the arcade, until an argument with Ted. Some say he tried it on, I only know Ashe moved her to the Palais bar.’
‘Ted!’ I suddenly remembered. ‘You know he’s…’
‘Had his head chopped off by a piece of that stolen metal? Just deserts for a life of thieving and letching, picking up girls in that arcade. He used to send the best ones to the Palais, he and Ashe shared them out. But even Ted couldn’t guess how Ashe would change after E-Day… it was like all his and Dahla’s Christmases had come at once. There was a Parish Council meeting and he just took charge. And we let him, we were scared back then…’
There was no need for further explanation.
‘Tanya, poor love,’ she spoke after a pause. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance..?’
‘I really don’t know.’
Angela’s eyes rested like mine then on the mangled metalwork now glinting along the harbour wall. I looked at those roofs along the quay and thought of their lidless buildings, of the state they would soon be in, of the mess the rain would leave, of the homes that animals would make of them; and I thought of all the work required to repair them, on top of all the national reconstruction already being done; and somehow knew it wasn’t likely to happen in our lifetimes.
‘Can they be put back up? The roofs?’ she asked, having the same thoughts. I saw the guilty look in the eye of a former Ashe-man as he passed us with the ankles of another in his hands.
‘Not easily,’ I answered, as in ‘not at all’.
‘Bloody shame. You know, the rest of us never liked…’
‘But he had the food. I know, it’s okay. Anyway, just think of all the other buildings he won’t get a chance to trash now.’ I said that and I realised I sounded just like Wareing, he always the knowledgeable one, calming my fears. I rose to my feet, myself calmed by this,
‘I have a boat to meet.’
‘You’re getting away?’ she laughed, stifling a tear. ‘Lucky you.’
I placed my hand on her arm, ‘I’ve a couple of things to attend to first. Don’t be alarmed if you hear one more explosion.’
I walked over to where Wareing lay, placed a little apart from the others in consideration of my feelings. I thought of leaving him his bag, but couldn’t leave the high explosive; so had to lift and turn him slowly to release the straps. Saying goodbye quietly after doing so, I stood then at his feet and saluted; and turned to leave. It must have been about four a.m.
Chapter 31 – A Target, After All