The bar was tiny and bright, and packed, and there was a mass of metal poles, so everybody had something to grip on to, just as all the bottles were fixed in place behind the bar. Sampson paid for our pints, then stood behind me, blocking the doorway. The bar moved like a pendulum, and I watched my glass until half the beer had flown away. Hopkins was pressed up next to me on the other side, along with a bloke in a waterproof who was doing his best to hold on to a spirit glass, and light a cigar. 'Crack boat, is this,' he said, to me.
Even Sampson had had his fill of that place after ten minutes, and we walked back up on the deck, where I saw a low line of muffled whiteness against the dark blue of the night sky.
'Is that France?' I said, as we regained our former perch by the wheel.
'Well spotted, Allan,' said Hopkins, sarcastic-like. A fourth passenger had come to the bench while we'd been in the bar. He turned and looked at us as we sat down, which seemed to cause Hopkins to rise immediately to his feet, and move towards the railing of the boat, just to the side of the wheel. I could not make out the reason for this sudden spring, although I did notice that the new fellow on the bench wore wire spectacles in exactly the same style as my own.
Chapter Twenty-four
The boat made some of its biggest bounces as it moved up towards the dock at Calais. Here was the Gare Maritime: I could picture those words in my head, having read them in the Railway Magazine. It was not quite a mirror of Dover but a simpler place: customs house and station on the dock like a stage, large hotel behind; the town low, wide and dark in the background with one spire like the hub of a cartwheel. The French shouts came towards us as we moved across the illuminated water.
Sampson, with his kitbag, his gun, and his pockets full of money, was foremost in the queue as the gangplank was dropped. I was behind him; Hopkins was behind me. At a nod from a rough customer in a black guernsey (I could tell he was French, but I couldn't tell how I knew), Sampson started walking forwards, and I followed.
I did not trust the steadiness of the ground as I gazed around the customs house. This time there was no pulpit, and the man waiting to look at the tickets sported a uniform, as did half a dozen others sitting about. Two of these were drinking coffee from metal cups, and these two also wore rifles over their shoulders. I looked at these strange, disconnected fellows, who spent their lives killing time half in one country, half in another, and wondered which of them would cop it if Valentine Sampson were to be stopped and asked to turn out his pockets. Sampson would certainly shoot, because he had nowhere to flee to.
He handed his ticket to the French official, who looked it over slowly. Slowly, too, he handed it back, and once again Sampson asked a question or made some remark. It was in French but evidently not carried off quite right, for the official had to lean over and ask for it to be repeated. The official's answer was quite loud, and a lot of pointing went along with it. With Sampson looking back towards me from just before the 'Sortie', Hopkins nudged me forwards, and I thought: I could crown Hopkins, then double back on to the boat and what would Sampson do? Fire across the customs hall and risk all to stop me fleeing? But the thought came once more: if I got away from them, they got away from me. They were nearer to making their escape now, and I was the only one with power to stop them. I was the sleuth hound; the tables were turned somehow. Or was that the confusion of an exhausted mind?
Very likely; I could not keep my thoughts in a straight line; and the strangeness of France added to the strangeness of all.
We crossed the rails by a walkway, then stepped under the cover of the platform for Paris. Except that there wasn't a platform, so the train, which was in but not ready, stood very high. It was a towering engine; brown inasmuch as it had any colour. Compound cylinders, and a mix-up of gadgets sprouted all over it – it was an engine built inside out. That was for ease of maintenance; it didn't look beautiful… but handsome is as handsome does. The tender was massive, overflowing with queer-looking French coal, and I wondered whether it was meant to run to Paris without stop. Hopkins was by my side; Sampson was ten yards off, buying wine and hunches of bread at a stall; beyond him was a promising sign: 'Bureau des Postes et Telegraphes'. Any attempt to telegraph was likely to be a palaver though, with me not knowing the language or the telegraphic address of the Chief, not to mention the likelihood of the Chief being dead. Sampson came up to us, carrying three bottles of wine. They were everyday articles – clear bottles without stoppers, and the loaves which were split with some sort of paste on the top. I bit into the bread, and it was soft and strange and more-ish; I then lifted the wine bottle, and put a load of that in, and when I looked towards Sampson again he was grinning at me.
'They do themselves pretty well this side of the water,' he said.
A thin man was close by, viewing the papers on a circular cabinet outside the book stall. I took this to be Hopkins, but looking again, it was not. A porter was moving towards me with a trolley, setting down little wooden steps at the doors of the train. Imagine doing that every time one came and went. These Frenchers were barmy
Still no sight of Hopkins… Sampson still drinking before me. Dead chuffed, he was. He'd made his breakaway, and he had his ready money. Well, half of it… a certain quantity, at any rate, the balance being at the left-luggage place in Charing Cross.
He passed his bottle to me, even though my own was in my hand. I put my own down, and took a drink from his. It was the same but different; and that went for the whole of France. Harbour, sea, night sky… the very rain that fell. There was a softness to the place… more of a womanly touch to it all.
Things really were more free and easy on this side of the water. As Sampson put away the last of his wine I had the freedom to move a little way from him towards the sign, and the door marked 'Bureau des Postes et Telegraphes'. I could see through the window. Electric light. Bank-like inside, with men in starched collars behind polished brass grills… All this going off at midnight, or near enough.
There were half a dozen windows: 'Postes', 'Telegraphes' and 'Bureau de Change'. I had about me the twenty quid that Sampson had paid me. I could change it, and use some of it to telegraph the Police Office at York station, or, failing that, the Stationmaster. 'Tell wife all well'. That would be my opener. I set down the wine bottle I was holding… and one of the telegraph clerks was eyeing me through the window. The thing about the bloody French… all the buggers were hoity-toity, not just the toffs. Just then, Miles Hopkins walked out through the door, and I saw an extra word amid all the signs inside: 'Telephones'.
Seeing me at large, unguarded on the platform, he immediately said: 'Where's Sam?'
And at that very moment, I could not have said.
But a second later Valentine Sampson came into view with more supplies of wine, saying, casual as you like:
'Train's due off in five minutes.'
The three of us walked towards a book stall, where Hopkins picked up an English paper. The crowd was thickening about us now as train time drew near – all French voices.
'Are we in it, mate?' asked Sampson, putting wine bottles into his pockets.
'It's today's paper' said Miles, 'which means it carries news of what happened yesterday.'
He was looking at Sampson in a strange way. Nothing would get Hopkins out of his groove. He was scheming at all times.
Alongside the cabinet from which Hopkins had plucked the paper was a bookshelf – a little library in the rain. I picked up a small red volume called Paris and its Environs, with Thirteen Maps and Thirty-Eight Plans. A proper language! And I straightaway saw instructions for telegraphing and telephoning from France. Hopkins was watching me as I said: 'Reckon this might come in useful. It's only marked down as a bob 'n' all… Oh no, bugger that. It must be one franc.'