7: Portrait of a Collaborator

COLEMORE continued to receive, with incredulous delight, the favours of Fortune. Steiger's convoy duly arrived and the Englishman was stowed away on a heap of Army blankets in one of the lorries. Colemore was quite sure he would be unable to close his eyes at all until they were safely over the frontier, but the convoy rumbled on at a steady twenty miles an hour, it was warm among the blankets, and he was sound asleep long before they reached Antwerp. He woke up and peered out between the curtains at the tail of the lorry to find that it was just getting light, bitterly cold, and pouring with rain which looked like turning to snow at any moment. He had no watch and could only guess the time to be about eight o'clock, they must have passed the frontier long ago. A flat straight road streaming with rain; away to his right---since he was looking backwards---flat lands extended to limitless water apparently on the same level. On the left, more flat land without water except that which was falling upon it. Behind, the other vehicles of the convoy dripped and splashed their monotonous way. Anthony Colemore returned to his blankets.

The convoy stopped at Bergen-op-Zoom for breakfast; Colemore left it at that point and took the train for Flushing. It was as easy as that.

He walked out of Flushing station, turned up his coat-collar, having removed his Party badge, and made for Van Drom's house. This town was almost home, he knew it well. Here was the statue of De Ruyter, gazing sternly into space, there was the flower-shop where he once bought white roses for that girl's fête day---what was her name---Van Drom's sister. She married an American and went to the States. Fortunate for her. Failing Van Drom---if he was away, for example---there were several people he could go to, that is if they were still there. There was Brouncker at the Mariner's Welcome down by the docks, he was probably still in the same place. He used to store the whisky from the time it mysteriously arrived from the warehouse until it was put on board the cabin cruiser; she used to lie in that little basin just behind the weighing house, and the Mariner's Welcome was in the street behind.

Not far now to Van Drom's house. Here was the Palais de Dance where those Swedish sailors threw the commissionaire through the staircase window on Boxing Night, 1937. He fell in a snowdrift but it broke his leg all the same. Now round this corner. The house is occupied, anyway, smoke coming from one of the chimneys, curtains at the windows. Colemore walked up the three steps to the front door and rang the bell. There was no immediate answer, he stood at the door waiting; when he bent his head the rain cascaded off the brim of his hat.

At last the door was unlocked; he looked up eagerly but the man who opened it was a stranger.

"Mynheer Van Drom," said Colemore, "is he at home?"

"Not at the moment," said the man in a friendly voice. "Will you not come in out of the wet?"

"Thank you, it is a dreadful morning," Colemore walked in and stood in the hall, dripping water upon the tiled floor. At least he could wait in the dry until Van Drom returned.

"Let me help you off with that wet coat," said the man, "then we will go to the kitchen, it is at least warm in there. I must introduce myself, my name is Willem Geerdts, a friend of Van Drom's. I am living here for the present."

Colemore followed him to the kitchen, which was empty. "The housekeeper," said Geerdts carelessly, "is out shopping, poor thing. Fancy standing in queues in this weather."

"The old lady," said Anthony, "Van Drom's mother, is she still alive?"

"No. She died, in 1940 I think. Before I came here, I never knew her."

Colemore nodded, and moved over to the tiled stove, rubbing his frozen fingers to restore the circulation. "If only it would stop raining and freeze instead," he said, "one would not feel it so much. It is this awful wetness that seems to get into one's bones."

"Will you not sit down?" said Geerdts. "Yes, there will be much sickness if this weather continues." He opened the stove door and threw in some small billets of wood. There followed a pause, as if neither man was willing to be responsible for opening the conversation.

"When do you expect Van Drom back?" asked Colemore.

"Not to-day, I fear. He has gone away on business and left me to look after things in his absence. I am in his confidence in all his affairs," added Geerdts pointedly.

"I am disappointed to find him away. I was hoping that he would be able to help me in a small matter," said Colemore cautiously.

"I thought perhaps you might need a little help, if I am not being indiscreet. It is unusual to see unmistakably English clothes in Holland these days," added Geerdts with a laugh.

"I am beginning to find them something of an embarrassment," admitted Colemore. "No well-dressed man should look so conspicuous."

"The sight of them is refreshing, they bring back memories of other and---I am taking a risk with a stranger---undoubtedly happier days."

"They may refresh some people, but they might annoy others," said Colemore.

"That is so. Those whom it is dangerous to annoy. If---forgive me---if it was a change of clothing which you hoped to obtain from Van Drom, I expect I could help you just as well."

"Thank you. That was certainly one thing, and I should be very grateful indeed. When do you expect him back?"

"It is childish," said Geerdts frankly, "for us to go on fencing with each other like this when we are obviously on the same side. We must be, or you would not have come, dressed like that, to Van Drom for help. I will be plain with you and tell you that I have not the least idea when Van Drom will be back. He has gone to England."

"Has he, indeed! Well, I don't know why I'm surprised, I might have expected it."

"He was engaged here on work of some importance," said Geerdts. "I daresay you know what it was. Then one or two little things began to look suspicious and we thought it would be safer if he left. I am doing my poor best to fill the gap. Now you know, and if you're a member of the Gestapo my number's up--but I don't think you are somehow."

Colemore laughed. "Frankness for frankness," he said. "I am an escaped British prisoner-of-war, that's what I am, and I was hoping Van Drom would help me to get across."

"So you're English, are you? Well, I'm--but why on earth such very English clothes?"

"That's a long story and I'll tell you sometime. I've bluffed my way across Germany with their help and this," said Colemore, producing the Nazi party badge. "I had the luck to pick it up and it's served me well. I think its usefulness is now finished, it would be safer in the stove. By the way, I appreciate your tact in not asking my name. I'll tell you if you like, but perhaps you'd rather not know. It might be safer--our temporary masters are not too gentle when they want to know something."

"As you like," said Geerdts, "though the name would be safe with me. One more thing I haven't got to tell won't make much odds among so many."

Colemore would have told him but for the fact that he was not sure whether he had better say Colemore or Brampton, or even Jean Legrin. Life does tend to become complicated with so many aliases. "Oh, call me Tony," he said. "That's what Van Drom always called me, and it will sound all right in this house. Does the grandfather clock still lose in the winter and gain in the summer?"

"Yes, I can't cure it. Well, what about some lunch, and I think then you'd better retire upstairs before the housekeeper comes back. It might be as well if she didn't see you--she doesn't live in, you can come down again when she's gone. She's new to me and I'm not quite sure, you understand?"

Colemore remained in a bedroom over the kitchen until the housekeeper had returned from her shopping expedition, prepared the evening meal and gone again. He amused himself very comfortably by changing into warm dry clothes of less remarkable appearance kindly provided by Geerdts, having a wash and a shave, and sitting in an armchair thinking how lucky he was until he fell asleep. Good chap, Geerdts....

At the supper-table the small portions reminded him of something he had forgotten; or, being a prisoner, had not fully realized. "I say," he said in horrified tones, "I can't live on your rations. I'm not going to starve you, it's not to be thought of."

"Doesn't matter a bit," said Geerdts cheerfully. "It's only for a few days. I hope to be able to arrange for your passage by Monday next at latest."

"Splendid, but---to-day's Tuesday isn't it?---that's six days ahead. I'm certainly not going to live on you for six days. I know a man who'll certainly be able to help me. There's a flourishing Black Market in Holland, isn't there? Yes, and if there wasn't he'd certainly start one. I'll go and see him to-morrow."

"If I might advise," said Geerdts carefully, "I think it would be very much wiser if you didn't go out until you leave here for good."

"What? Stay in doors for five days on end? Not if I know it."

"It would be safer," urged Geerdts. "You might be seen to come out of the house."

"Then I'll go over the garden wall," said Colemore. "It wouldn't be the first time."

"If you were seen doing that," said Geerdts, laughing, "that would indeed settle it."

"Why should I be seen at all?" asked Colemore, turning obstinate. "I won't go out in the daylight since you advise against it, but I shall be all right after dark. I'll go to-night, not to-morrow; the sky's cleared and it isn't even raining."

"I must really," said Geerdts, persisting, "ask you, as a personal favour, to stay here. To wander about a German-occupied town is most unsafe--most."

"That's all right," said Anthony, with a laugh. He got up and slipped into the shabby but warm overcoat which Geerdts silently offered him. "I'll go and try to rustle up some provisions, shan't be long."

"Where does your Black Marketeer live---is it far?" asked Geerdts anxiously.

"Oh, no, quite close," said Anthony untruthfully. As a matter of fact it was some distance, but he wasn't giving away Brouncker and the Mariner's Welcome to anybody, however well-intended. Rather tactless of Geerdts to ask. "This the latchkey?" went on Colemore. "Thanks awfully, very trusting of you. Cheerio, see you later."

He pursued his unobtrusive way towards the dock area, making sure at intervals that he was not being followed, and approached the Mariner's Welcome with caution. The place looked much as it did in the old days; not quite so full and a lot shabbier, but basically the same. A low beamed ceiling, a sanded floor, round iron tables here and there with bentwood chairs grouped round them; not so many lights as there used to be, a bar right across the far end with two copper pots on either side in which the square green shoots of hyacinth bulbs just showed above the mould. Colemore even recognized the pots. The room was about half full of men who all stopped talking and stared at him as he entered; Brouncker himself was behind the bar, not so healthily florid as he used to be and his hair much greyer, but still a square reassuring figure. He looked at Anthony without recognition as he crossed the room, after all it was five years since they had met.

Colemore leaned on the bar and asked if there was any Schnapps in the house.

"Not to call Schnapps," said Brouncker surlily. "There's spirits, of a sort."

When he returned with the glass Anthony leaned yet further across the bar and said in a low tone, "None of that whisky left that we used to run across?"

Brouncker stared at him and the Englishman added, "Don't you remember me? Colemore."

The Dutchman nodded, opened the flap of the bar and said, "You'd better come inside."

Colemore passed through the bar and between the tattered red curtains, once so smart, into the back room. There was a lanky lad in there whom Brouncker sent out to mind the bar, he then carefully shut the door behind him.

"Mynheer Colemore, this is a very great surprise. How the devil you get here, eh? I am delighted to see you."

"From a prisoner-of-war camp," said Colemore, shaking hands with him warmly. "I got tired of being shut up, so I left."

Brouncker's broad face creased with laughter. "I seem to remember," he said, "you got tired of being shut up once before, eh? Or is it tactless to mention it?"

"Not at all. I wish Miss Impertinence was still tied up in the basin behind here, she'd be useful now."

"Your little boat, yes. What became of her?"

"Confiscated by the British Customs authorities, I don't know where she is now."

"Perhaps she was running something better than whisky at Dunkirk, eh?"

Colemore's face lit up. "Oh, probably she was. If only I'd got there I might have got a lift home in her. Would have been strange, wouldn't it?"

"You want to get across now, eh?"

"Yes. I think that'll be all right. Geerdts is fixing it up for me."

"Who?" said Brouncker sharply.

"Geerdts. Willem Geerdts. He lives in Van Drom's house. I went straight there when I arrived this morning, but apparently Van Drom's gone to England. Don't you know Geerdts?"

"Van Drom has not gone to England," said Brouncker.

"Where is he then?"

"In heaven, no doubt. He was a good man."

"What! When did this happen?"

Brouncker thought for a moment. "Twenty months ago."

"But---doesn't Geerdts know?"

"He should. He sent him there."

Colemore turned white. "Look here. Are you certain of this?"

"Not certain, no. I have no proof. Only what you call morally certain, eh? Geerdts has been very helpful in getting your airmen out, and at first we thought Van Drom had just been unlucky. Then there were others in the Underground Movement with whom Geerdts came in contact who also were unlucky. Too many of them. So we watch him very closely and upon the first definite proof---for we are just men, we do not condemn without proof like the damned Nazis---upon the first proof, we act."

Colemore emptied his glass and Brouncker took it away from him. "Now we have some real Schnapps, eh? Not that muck. I am sorry I did not know you when you came in, you looked a stranger and here we distrust strangers these days."

Anthony laughed a little. "I seem to remember that you always did. Customs officials or Nazi officials, what's the odds?"

Brouncker chuckled. "You are right. It seems the war has not changed either of us so much, eh? We still dislike the same things we disliked before. But, Mynheer Colemore, that you have been with Geerdts, that is serious. You told him who you were, eh?"

"Not my name. Only that I was an escaped British prisoner, and a friend of Van Drom's."

"You must not go back to Geerdts," said Brouncker decisively.

"No? I'm not so sure. Listen, Brouncker." Colemore told him the whole story; how he had enlisted into German Intelligence, how he had given them the slip to prove his abilities and would get into contact with them again to prove his good faith. How he intended, on reaching England, to approach British Intelligence and work for them with the Germans.

"You play a dangerous game, Mynheer. I would not give twopence for your life," said Brouncker frankly.

"Never mind, it'll be fun. And perhaps, when it's all over, the British authorities will forget about Maidstone Jail. About Geerdts, though. He does not know that I suspect him; if I go back to-night he will be sure I don't. You want proof, perhaps I can obtain it."

"You will not know from one moment to another when the Gestapo are coming to arrest you," objected Brouncker. "He may have denounced you already."

"If they arrive I will floor them with this," said Colemore, producing his special pass. "Geerdts hasn't seen that yet. I don't know why I didn't show it to him, I just like keeping something in reserve on principle."

"But," said Brouncker, "if they see that they will say 'Ha. This is that escaped prisoner who is to be arrested.'"

"I am hoping that the order for my arrest has not yet reached so far. If it has I must either bluff it out or dive through the nearest window," said Colemore cheerfully.

"You are quite mad, but such madness sometimes succeeds when caution fails. Tell me, is there anything I can do for you, eh?"

"I want a letter sent to England at once, to warn them about the arrival of the other four men who were with me. I want to get across myself when I've attended to Geerdts. To-night, I want some foodstuffs to take back to the house, that was what I came out for, or so I said."

"Write your letter here," said Brouncker. "There is a British airman being taken across to-night, if I am quick I can give it to him before he starts, he can carry it. Will you not go with him, eh? It would be much better."

"No," said Colemore. "There is Geerdts to see to first--Van Drom was a friend of mine."

"Very well. Here is pen and paper, write your letter while I find you some food. Bread, bacon, an egg or two and a very little butter. Also a small piece of soap, if you wish."

Colemore sat down and wrote the letter which told British Intelligence exactly where and when to meet Abbott, Little, Nicholls and Tanner on the coast of Dorset on the night of January the eighth.