Flight of Eagles. Jack Higgins

we heard a sudden roaring, and Simeon said, ‘That’ll be the helicopter. Better get him up there.’ He nodded at Dupont.

      His father said, ‘Good lad. I’ll see to these two. Hot baths in order. Decent dinner.’ He picked up Tarquin.

      I said, ‘And an explanation. We’d love that.’

      ‘You’ll have it,’ he said, ‘I promise you.’

      They had Dupont on a stretcher by then, carried him out and we followed.

      The whole place had been put together in the mid-eighteenth century by a Sir William Chevely, we were told later, the cottages, harbour, quay, everything. By repute, Chevely had been a smuggler, and the port had been a front for other things. The pub, the Hanged Man, had mullioned windows and timber inserts. It certainly didn’t look Georgian.

      Zec took us in and found a motherly sort of woman behind the bar who answered to the name of Betsy and who fussed around Denise immediately, taking her off upstairs. I stayed in the old, beamed bar with Zec and sat in front of the roaring log fire and enjoyed a very large Bushmills Whiskey.

      He sat Tarquin on a ledge near the fire. ‘Let him dry natural.’

      He took out a tin of cigarettes and selected one. I said, ‘The bear is important to you?’

      ‘Oh, yes.’ He nodded. ‘And to another. More than you’ll ever know.’

      ‘Tell me.’

      He shook his head. ‘Later, when that wife of yours is with us. Quite a girl, that one. Got a few years on you.’

      ‘Twenty-five,’ I said. ‘But after fifteen years together, we must have got something right.’

      ‘Take it day by day,’ he said. ‘I learned that in the war. A lot of dying in those days.’

      ‘Were you in the Navy?’

      ‘Only for the first year, then they pulled me back to be coxswain of the lifeboat. It was like a full-time occupation in those days. Ships torpedoed, pilots down in the Channel. No, I missed out on the real naval war.’

      As I discovered later, this was a totally false impression of a man who had earned the Distinguished Service Medal during his year with the Navy, then the George Cross, the MBE and four gold medals from the RNLI during his extraordinary service to that fine institution.

      I said, ‘The sign outside the inn shows a young man hanging upside down suspended by his ankle. That’s a tarot image, isn’t it? I think it means regeneration.’

      ‘Ah, well, it was Julie Legrande painted that back in the big war. Housekeeper of the manor and ran the pub. We’ve had to have it freshened over the years, but it’s still what Julie painted.’

      ‘French?’ I asked.

      ‘Refugee from the Nazis.’ He stood. ‘Time you had a bath too. What business would you be in?’

      ‘I’m a novelist,’ I said.

      ‘Would I know you?’ I told him and he laughed. ‘Well, I guess I do. You’ve helped me get through a bad night or two. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Now, if you’ll excuse me …’ He stood and walked out.

      I sat there thinking about it. Mystery piled on mystery here. The solution should be interesting.

      We had dinner in the corner of the bar – sea bass, new potatoes, and a salad – and shared an ice-cold bottle of Chablis with Zec and Simeon. Denise and I both wore jeans and sweaters provided by the management. There were perhaps eight or more fishermen at the bar, three of them crew members of the lifeboat. The log fire burned brightly, rain rattled against the windows, and Tarquin steamed gently.

      ‘My dad used to tell me about Tarquin, the flying bear, when I was a kid,’ Simeon said. ‘I always thought it was a fairy story.’

      ‘So now you’ve finally learned the truth,’ Zec said. ‘You listen to me in future, boy.’ He turned to Denise. ‘Tell me where you got him.’

      ‘Antique shop in Brighton the other years,’ she said. ‘They told us he’d flown in the Battle of Britain with his owner, but they didn’t have any proof. I was always intrigued by the fact that besides RAF wings, he also wears Royal Flying Corps wings, and that was the First World War.’

      ‘Yes, well he would,’ Zec said. ‘That’s when he first went to war with the boys’ father.’

      There was silence. Denise said carefully, ‘The boys’ father?’

      ‘A long time ago, 1917 in France, but never mind that right now.’ He nodded to Simeon. ‘Another bottle.’ Simeon went obediently to the bar and Zec said, ‘I last saw Tarquin in 1944. On his way to occupied France. Then all these years later, he turns up on a shelf in an antique shop in Brighton.’

      He opened his tin, took out a cigarette and my wife said, ‘Could I join you?’ He gave her one and a light, and she leaned back. ‘Tarquin is an old friend, I think?’

      ‘You could say that. I took him out of the Channel once before. Nineteen forty-three. Went down in a Hurricane. Great fighters, those. Shot down more of the Luftwaffe than Spitfires did.’ He seemed to brood and as Simeon returned with the new bottle of Chablis, the old man said, ‘Harry, that was, or was it Max? We could never be sure.’

      Simeon put the tray down. ‘You all right, Dad?’ There was concern in his voice.

      ‘Who, me?’ Zec Acland smiled. ‘Wasn’t there a book about some Frenchman who smelled or tasted something and the past all came flooding back?’

      ‘Marcel Proust,’ Denise said.

      ‘Well, that’s what that damned bear’s done for me. Brought it all back.’ There were tears in his eyes.

      Simeon poured the wine. ‘Come on, Dad, drink up. Don’t upset yourself.’

      ‘My bedroom. The red box in the third drawer. Get it for me, boy.’

      Simeon went obediently.

      Zec put another log on the fire, and when Simeon returned with the box, Zec placed it on the table and opened it, revealing papers and photos.

      ‘Some of these you’ve seen, boy,’ he told Simeon. ‘And some you haven’t.’

      He passed one of the pictures to Denise: the quay at Cold Harbour, a lifeboat moored, a much older model, Simeon on deck, a naval cap on the back of his head. Simeon and yet not Simeon.

      ‘I looked good then,’ Zec said.

      Denise leaned across and kissed his cheek. ‘You still do.’

      ‘Now don’t you start what you can’t finish, girl.’ He fell about laughing, then passed photos across, one after another, all black and white.

      The pub looked the same. There was a shot of an Army officer, engagingly ugly, about sixty-five from the look of him, steel-rimmed spectacles, white hair.

      ‘Brigadier Munro,’ Zec said. ‘Dougal Munro, Oxford professor before the war, then he joined the intelligence service. What was called Special Operations Executive. SOE. Churchill cooked that up. Set Europe ablaze, he said, and they did. Put secret agents into France, that sort of thing. They moved the local population out of Cold Harbour. Turned it into a secret base.’

      He poured more wine and Simeon said, ‘You never told me that, Dad.’

      ‘Because we and everyone else here had to sign the Official Secrets Act.’ He shook out some more photos. A woman with Brigadier Munro. ‘That was Julie Legrande. As I said, housekeeper at the manor and ran the pub.’ There was another picture with Munro and an officer, a captain with a ribbon for the MC, a stick in one hand. ‘That was Jack Carter, Munro’s aide. Left his leg at Dunkirk.’

      There were others, and then he came to a large brown envelope. He hesitated, then opened it. ‘Official Secrets Act.