I looked at Elizabeth. She was white, but seemed as composed as usual. 'I shall tell this tale when I'm back in London,' I said to Lamartine. 'The war can't go on for ever. You'll have some very nasty questions to answer at the end of it, take my word for that.'
_'Je m'en fiche de cela.'_ He stubbed out his Weekend and opened the packet for another.
'If you have second thoughts, you can get hold of me through the British consul. If you give me back the mould, I'll keep quiet about what's happened in this room. I promise that.'
'It is a great disadvantage of you English that unlike we French you can never see when you are beaten. You are simply not realists.'
He struck a match. Madame Chalmar still sat staring in fright, finger-tips to lips. Hand in hand, Elizabeth and I escaped.
'Darling, you were utterly wonderful, you handled him perfectly,' she said.
'He's not dangerous, he's only frightened,' I said modestly. 'Everyone's frightened, just look round you.'
We decided to make straight for the British consulate. Bordeaux was full of rootless people, as Paris had been the week before. The streets were jammed with newly arrived cars, in which the occupants had no choice but to sleep and live. The cafйs were all crammed, the food shops all sold out. The consulate lobby was full of British civilians in the same plight as ourselves. The weather had become oppressive, and everyone strained to curb their temper. There was no official in sight, but from the conversation the chances of a boat home were slim.
We spent an hour leaning against the wall holding hands, discussing the chances of being locked in the same cell with Lamartine and Madame Chalmar. Then a voice came unexpectedly, 'I say-Elizabeth Tiplady.'
I turned to find a young pink-faced man with the zig-zag braid of a Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve lieutenant.
'Why, it's Hugo,' she exclaimed.
'The uniform suits you.'
'How sweet.'
'What on earth are you doing in France?'
'I was posted to the British Hospital in Paris.'
'Really? That must have been no end of fun until the balloon went up.'
'Yes, it was, awfully.'
'Then why have you come to Bordeaux?'
'I'm trying to get home.'
'But what about your unit?'
'I seem rather to have lost it. Do you suppose I'm a deserter?' He laughed.
'I say, old thing, can you do anything about a ship?' Elizabeth asked. Under the shiny, forged steel of this conversation, which might have occurred in Gunter's tea room in Mayfair, I could detect her nervousness.
'Well, I'm in a destroyer which is sailing tonight. I expect I could get you aboard her.'
'Oh, super.'
'How's Sir Edward?'
'He seems very well. Jim, this is Hugo Mottram. Don't you remember? I was going out with him when you wanted to take me to the theatre. Hugo, this is Jim Elgar, who's coming to England with me.'
'Sorry, Elizabeth. The Navy can't transport civilians.'
'Don't be ridiculous, Hugo. You can't fuss over red tape with the Germans likely to come round the corner any minute.'
'King's Regulations are hardly red tape.'
'Anyway, Jim isn't a civilian. He's a chemist on vital war work, and we're engaged to be married.'
Hugo stared hard at my crumpled styleless clothes, my grubby semi-stiff collar, my dusty shoes and grimy, stubbly face. I still had my umbrella, which had become tattered. 'I'm so pleased,' Hugo said limply.
'Did you mean that?' I asked, as he disappeared amid the crowd.
'Do you suppose I'd say anything as serious as that on the spur of the moment? Over this past fortnight, I've simply assumed it to be the case.' I leant to kiss her. 'Darling, please! I'm in uniform.'
Shortly afterwards, one of the consular staff appeared to announce that we should both be taken off that night, and advised us to stay in the building for further orders. Our relief at this news rendered a day sustained by cups of tea and four squares of Motoring Chocolate perfectly tolerable.
I was too tired and uncomfortable to express elation at Elizabeth's admission. I was dejected at leaving France, like the British Army, in frustration and defeat. But I was overwhelmingly comforted at the prospect of the pair of us reaching English soil, the U-boats and Luftwaffe permitting. About four in the afternoon, I was amazed to see Madame Chalmar appear, carrying a bulky foolscap envelope. Elizabeth translated for me excitedly. 'She says the doctor is neither a fascist nor a traitor, just very stupid in the practical affairs of life. He should never have acquired a revolver, he's never fired one in his life. He doesn't even know how to reload it.'
I did not believe this, but asked quickly, 'She's got the penicillin?'
From her large handbag, Madame Chalmar produced the flask I had last seen in Florey's room at Oxford. I noticed at once that the mould was still alive. The Germans could simply have seeded out fragments, and grown as much as they liked. 'How awfully uninteresting it looks,' said Elizabeth in disappointment.
We all shook hands. Madame Chalmar said as she left, _'Enchantйe, monsieur,'_ as though breaking up a party.
'How did she manage to get it out of him?' I asked Elizabeth, looking at the flask unbelievingly.
'She said she shamed him into it. I always thought she wore the trousers in that mйnage. Lamartine is a weak character, isn't he? Utterly puny, you could tell that by all his lies when he'd no intention whatever of giving you the stuff back.'
'Even so, she was forcing him to disgorge something which might have saved both their lives.'
'Surely, darling, you know that women who suffer terrible _crises de nerfs_ over trivialities can be absolutely indomitable over fundamentals?'
I took Florey's papers outside and burnt them on the pavement. The passers-by took no notice. People were up to all manner of odd things in Bordeaux during those few days. I was desperate to destroy the mould completely, as quickly as possible, and without trace. When I got back to the consulate, Elizabeth was pink faced and swallowing hard, her khaki handkerchief to her lips. 'I've eaten it,' she announced. 'Like a good spy with a secret message. The broth stuff and all. It tasted utterly horrible. You said it was quite harmless, darling, didn't you?'
Our passage of 500 miles was stretched by detours into two and a half days. The weather broke for the first time since the sun warmed the armour of Hitler's tanks as it rose on the morning of May 10. Behind us in France, Prime Minister Paul Reynaud implored President Roosevelt to declare war on Hitler. But without success. So he resigned in favour of Marshal Pйtain. We disembarked in Plymouth on the Sunday afternoon of June 16. We went to a big hotel for tea, sitting among the plants with elderly couples impassively reading their Sunday papers while eating fingers of buttered toast and cress sandwiches and complaining about the shortage of sugar.
About seven-thirty the following morning, we stood under the clock at Paddington Station in London, suddenly shocked that we should be torn from one another.
'You do mean it?' I asked her timorously once again.
'You don't surely imagine I should have abandoned myself like that in France, if I hadn't already decided to marry you?' She said this in a hurt voice. 'I told you, Jim darling, I'm sйrieuse.' She promised to come to Oxford as soon as she could. 'Though I shall probably get into the most frightful hot water about losing that car.'
The red buses traversed Piccadilly Circus with an air of elephantine security, policemen as stolid as suet puddings in uniform halted them for the march of men in bowlers armed with umbrellas. The cinemas were opening for the afternoon performance and St James's church was advertising its next Sunday's preacher. The evening papers announced that the French were suing for an armistice. A French delegation was escorted by General Kurt von Tippelskirch to the clearing in the Forest of Compiиgne where Foch had dictated his terms in November 1918. They found Hitler sitting in the same railway coach, shifted by German Army engineers to the same position on the rusty tracks. Such petty details made the Nazis so frightening, like sending Domagk's letter for posting in Wuppertal.