The Bench Page 3

  Strangely, Little Jacques did not mind the arrangement. Honeysuckle had always been there, part of him. She was fun and liked what he liked. She could climb trees better than any boy her own age, she could row quicker than any other child in Yarmouth and she laughed at all his jokes.

  By the time she was five years old Big Jacques, with his son’s help, had taught her fluent French and on a nice day she would go out on the fishing boat with them both.

  By six, Honeysuckle was one of the gang. There was only one gang in Yarmouth, it was a small place, but she was their resident tomboy. Within the gang there was a second gang, a gang of two who spoke French to each other. When that gang wished they could cut out the rest of the world, at least the world in Yarmouth. In their world everyone spoke French, sometimes to the amusement of others and sometimes to their annoyance. However, Big Jacques liked it, soon the Isle of Wight would be French!

  Honeysuckle loved it when they talked their own language in their own world where she was alone with Jacques.

  When Jacques told her he had joined The Air Force she was angry, just like his father had been. She had never really been cross with him before, not about anything as serious as this. He would be leaving her and she could not remember a time when he was not by her side. The last time he had left she had followed but this time she could not. It had scared her and she had panicked. In French, he’d explained why he had to go and of course she had understood, but it did not make it any easier.

  When he left before and she had followed, it had caused one hell of a stir and she still didn’t know if people were angry with her or admired her. She suspected a mixture of both. When Big Jacques had gone to see his family in France, they had always taken her with them on the fishing boat. So why would they not take her this time? All they were going to do was go to France and pick up some soldiers.

  When she hid under the tarpaulin in the stowage beneath the cockpit on the fishing boat, she had no idea of the scale of the operation she was about to become involved in, or the trouble she would cause.

  A couple of days earlier, The British Ministry of Shipping had contacted all small boat builders and operators with a view to gathering an armada of small ships to rescue the stranded armies of Britain and France from the beaches of Dunkirk before Hitler dealt them one last final blow. They needed ships with shallow drafts to gain access to the beaches and to ferry the troops to the larger ships that lay offshore. Big Jacques could not volunteer quickly enough and finally gave into the pleadings of his son to join him. Their boat was one of 700 that gathered in Dover and Ramsgate to make the crossing, which were guided by bigger ships of the British Navy.

  It had been a long journey to Dover and then a wait before the final Channel crossing. They never knew how Honeysuckle remained undetected for so long, but they were thirty-five minutes into the Channel crossing when Jacques went down into the stowage to fetch something. When he heard the sneeze he nearly jumped out of his skin, but he knew instantly who it would be. There beneath the tarpaulin was Honeysuckle with an impish smile on her face, eating a sandwich she had brought with her.

  “What the hell? How did you...”

  “I had to come, Jacques. I promise I won’t get in the way and I will be useful. I know I will.”

  To Jacques it didn’t seem so bad. She was always with him, so why not now? To his father, it was as if the world had caved in. He was furious and was all for turning back. Honeysuckle begged for forgiveness and made him the same promises. After some time, aided by her only ally she managed to persuade Big Jacques that she may actually be of some use in looking after the men they would pick up. They continued their journey, but Big Jacques wished they had not. Honeysuckle should never have seen the things she did see at such a young age.

  They could hear the shelling before they could see the carnage that littered the beaches of Dunkirk. A smoke haze filled the air and with it came the smell of battle. Their job was to take the boat into the shallows and pick up thirty men at a time and ferry them to the waiting Destroyers. The first group they picked up were all French and Honeysuckle, true to her word, proved extremely useful getting them seated and giving them instructions in French. Many were seriously injured, but she never flinched once at their wounds and tended to them as best she could. The little angel who had come to save them bewitched the soldiers.

  After several shipments of the human debris, Big Jacques could not be cross with his surrogate daughter any longer. She was a tower of strength to all around her and word spread about the ‘la petite ange’ who spoke French who had come from England to save them.

  Throughout the operation an air battle raged above their heads between the Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force, which Jacques watched fascinated by the dots painting pictures in the sky. Occasionally a plane would burst into flames or crash into the sea nearby. Bombs would explode in the water, but for the most part the soldiers were evacuated without further losses. Each soldier that climbed into their boat beamed when they saw little Honeysuckle with her mop of dark curls and her welcoming, “Bonjour.”

  Big Jacques was hugely impressed by Honeysuckle but his son was not surprised, he already knew how impressive she was.

  Finally they were given orders to take twenty soldiers back across the Channel to Dover. These boys were British, and led by Honeysuckle and Jacques they sang all the way home, whilst Big Jacques grinned.

  In Ramsgate Honeysuckle was put ashore into the waiting arms of her distressed mother, whom the Navy had managed to contact and inform of the whereabouts of her errant daughter.

  As Big Jacques helped her onto the quay he said, “Your daughter has done very well. She is a heroine.” He had a proud smile on his face, the smile of a proud father.

  Not knowing what to say or do, Audrey just hugged her daughter and cried.

  Father and son refuelled the boat and set off in convoy back to Dunkirk to bring the next wave home. They returned twenty-four hours later in a force five gale that had half the soldiers being sick, the whole experience having now become quite unpleasant without Honeysuckle at their side.

  Jacques looked down from the paddle steamer at the now smiling Honeysuckle, her whole face alight, and he was not completely sure of his emotions as he studied her. She was no longer a child, and it had been a child with which he’d had a lifelong relationship. The three years difference in their age had always made her his little friend, but she was changing. Ever since Dunkirk her personality had become more mature, and in the last month or two he’d noticed some other subtle changes, as the small girl was becoming a young woman. Next time he saw her the small girl would be gone, and part of him was sad at its passing. He had enjoyed the child Honeysuckle and found himself wondering what the woman would be like.

  Her hormones had confused Honeysuckle. She knew what was happening to her, she was becoming a woman and with that she found herself having feelings she’d never experienced before. Jacques was suddenly handsome, not just fun to be with. She had fantasised about kissing him, as she had with other boys of her own age from school, but the fantasy always returned to Jacques. She wondered if it was wrong that she should have such feelings for him. She was fourteen and would be fifteen soon, and Jacques was like her big brother, that is the relationship they’d always had. Unlike her friends, who all seemed to hate their big brothers and argued with them all the time, Honeysuckle and Jacques were always the best of friends. So, was he really like her brother? She was confused. Eighteen months ago it had been simple. When he went to Dunkirk it was her job to go with him and despite what people had told her since, both Jacques and she knew it was the right thing to do. Even Big Jacques had seen it. But now it was different, she didn’t like her small breasts and the feelings that came with them. They had changed her relationship with him, and she wanted her big brother back.

  As the paddle steamer made the short crossing of the Solent to Lymington, Jacques found himself thinking of Honeysuckle all the time. He was smiling at the little girl wh
o waited at her front door for him to come home from school, the smile he knew so well lighting up her face when he appeared. He loved Honeysuckle’s smile, it was mesmerising and seemed to have a life of its own. When she smiled at you it was impossible not to smile back and in recent weeks it had become even more beautiful. She had always been a pretty little thing, but when she smiled she was captivating, and as she was turning into a woman that smile was becoming so disarming Jacques had found himself staring at the smile whenever it appeared.

  Honeysuckle sat on the pier with her legs dangling over the side of the wooden structure. Her mum sat at her side and they watched the ferry get smaller as its huge paddles slowly ate up the short distance to Lymington.

  Honeysuckle’s eyes never left the boat and it was just a speck in the distance when she said, “Will I ever see him again, Mummy?”

  “Yes, darling, you will. He will be back soon, don’t worry.”

  Honeysuckle was quiet for a while then said, “You know I love him, don’t you?” She was detached, part of her had left on the boat with him and that part was also becoming just a speck in the distance.

  Her mother looked at her. Virtually the first words Honeysuckle had ever said were, “I love, Jacques.” She had said it many times since, but this was the first time she had ever heard the young woman say them, and she recognised the difference.

  “I know, darling.“ She hugged Honeysuckle and prayed that the War, or Jacques, would never break her beautiful daughter’s heart.

  On the boat Jacques was about to eat the ham sandwich his mother had given him and he was suddenly back in the present.

  An expectant Buster was nudging the bag by the man’s side with his nose, the smell of ham emanating from it had become too much for him to bear.

  FOUR

  Buster had watched the man making the sandwiches and there was something new in them. It wasn’t a smell he recognised but he was prepared to believe it would taste good. The man had never actually given him anything that didn’t taste good. So he set off up the hill with the added excitement of a mystery sandwich to look forward to. His guarding would have to be especially effective today with such a prize at stake.

  The man didn’t seem as excited about the mystery sandwich as Buster, as he was soon remembering and hadn’t made any extra provision to protect Buster’s lunch.

  Jacques was sitting at the controls of a Lysander Mk III, its wheels no more than five feet above the hedge that marked the edge of the farmer’s field. A half-moon gave just about enough light to illuminate the unforgiving hedgerow.

  He had made one sweep of the field and was pleased to see the four flares being lit as he came round to make the landing. He never really knew what would await him as the wheels touched down in the field. They usually selected something quite reasonable, but not always. The previous week he’d put her down in a ploughed field. Thank God the Lysander was a tough little bird, but it wasn’t invincible. His friend Daniel had left one minus its undercarriage in what was more akin to a quarry than a field. Jacques had flown out to France three days later to get him, Daniel now having taught the local Resistance about the importance of flat fields for landing with an approach that would be possible to fly in the dark.

  That was the problem; most of the drops and retrievals were done at night with only the moon offering any assistance to land. It was always a trade off, moonlight or the protection of a black sky. In daylight it was too dangerous. The Lysander was slow and ponderous and was perfect fodder for the Luftwaffe’s fighters. Any daylight drop required protection from the fighters of the R.A.F., so they were most effective under cover of the night sky. It was dangerous though, hedges and trees accounting for more losses than the German guns.

  This was Jacque’s twenty-second sortie. He had been lucky. It was easier when someone just parachuted in, but his squadron specialised in a more personal door-to-door service. Tonight he was going to pick up Yvette.

  He met Yvette five weeks previously when he had taken her to Normandy. She was a member of The French Resistance and liaised for clandestine operations with the Special Operations Executive. She had climbed aboard the Lysander dressed as a man with her hair tucked under her beret. She did not say anything to Jacques who was under the impression that she was a he! His other sorties had all been carrying men and they were usually quite chatty. They were twenty minutes into the flight before she finally asked in a thick French accent, “How much longer?”

  The accent didn’t surprise him, others had been French, but he was surprised to hear the first female he’d flown and he replied in French, “Forty minutes, Mademoiselle, assuming we find them on the ground okay. It‘s a dark night and the clouds are getting lower.”

  It was her turn to be surprised. “You are a Frenchman in The Royal Air Force?” His French was too perfect for him to be English.

  Over the thunderous noise from the Lysander’s radial engine Jacques explained his unusual upbringing to the shadowy figure sitting behind him. Eventually he had to concentrate on finding the drop zone with his compass and map, he was becoming good at finding fields on moonless nights. From the ground when the sky above was at it’s darkest all you could hear was the engine as the matt black aeroplane ghosted through the skies. He knew he was close and his eyes scanned the area for the telltale sign of a flashlight. There it was, he made one low flypast to gauge the field and its surroundings. As the paraffin flares burst into life in the field below him, he made a steep banked turn and rolled out onto his final high-angled approach path, which brought him safely over the treetops, then he expertly put her down between the flares.

  Figures ran out to meet them as Yvette jumped from the plane. She turned to look at the English Frenchman and saw his face as one of the flashlights caught it. He smiled at her.

  “Merci, Monsieur,” she said and found herself smiling back at him. She couldn’t help herself.

  “Am I glad to see you!” A very English voice said from behind her.

  “Jump in. I’ll get you back in time for a fry up,” Jacques called to the man who’d been shot down a week earlier and who was becoming frustrated that his repatriation was taking so long due to a spell of inclement weather.

  “Finally, a clear night, I thought we‘d never get one,” the pilot said as he nimbly scaled the ladder by the door. He looked back at the strange looking chap who’d just leapt from the plane and saw him smiling at the chauffeur who was about to take him back to Blighty.

  Yvette was now busying herself with her fellow freedom fighters who were embracing her affectionately.

  “Hey, what’s your name?” Jacques called to her.

  “Yvette.” She took one last look at him.

  “Be careful, Yvette. I’ll see you soon.”

  The door closed before she could reply. She was still smiling as her comrades pulled her away to the cover of the woods and their waiting vehicle.

  In the intervening five weeks Jacques had thought a lot about Yvette. He wasn’t sure as it had been so dark, but he thought she must have been pretty. The boys at the base had confirmed she was, they also told him she was one of the bravest Resistance fighters they knew. He’d been fascinated by the stories about her and was thrilled when the Boss had told him he was to pick her up again that night. He wanted to know more about Yvette.

  They used a different field this time and Yvette was soon clambering aboard the Lysander. Still dressed as a man, her face blackened this time.

  “Hello, Yvette. Your carriage awaits,” Jacques beamed at her.

  It had been a rough five weeks and she had lost two close friends, but seeing his face somehow uplifted her and all the pressures she’d been feeling seemed to dissipate. How could seeing a virtual stranger make that happen?

  Jacques was still smiling as she strapped herself in. He did not know it, but the next week was going to change the course of Jacques’s war.

  After his training he had been posted to 161 Squadron (Special Duties). When he’d joined up he a
nticipated having dogfights over the Isle of Wight in his Spitfire, with Honeysuckle waving at him from Headon Warren. Two things had stopped that from happening. Firstly, his instructors noticed that he seemed to posses an innate natural sense of direction. They teased him that it was because of his life at sea and he’d become known as ‘Fish Head!’ Secondly, it was soon apparent that he spoke perfect French. Just what was needed to fly the ’Frogs in and out of France.’ It was a perfectly natural process to send him to 161 Squadron.

  They had given him further training in flying at night with very little guidance, and even given him a quick survival course on how to avoid detection in the ‘unlikely event’ that he should be shot down.

  Jacques had enjoyed it all and was rapidly becoming one of the Squadron’s best pilots. He seemed able to find places others could not in the most marginal of weather conditions. He said it was because France was in his blood, and he was becoming the pilot of choice for the more dangerous incursions.

  That night he landed back at R.A.F. Tangmere, near Chichester, to refuel before taking Yvette back to R.A.F. Tempsford in Bedfordshire for her debriefing. Tempsford was the most secret Air Force base in Britain, from which the Special Operations Executive conducted their war.

  The Special Operations Executive, S.O.E., was set up by Winston Churchill to fight the war behind enemy lines using espionage and sabotage as weapons, and it was the core of the Resistance movement located in Britain. It was known as ‘Churchill’s Secret Army’ or ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare,’ and supplied arms and personnel to facilitate all manner of destruction on the enemy. In Churchill’s own words, “It was designed to set Europe ablaze.”