‘It’s a sorry case, Commander, but, as I would guess you know from experience — ’ he glanced briefly at Joe’s head wound — ‘not at all unusual.’ After the slightest pause he said confidentially, ‘Can’t help noticing that your surgery was not done by the hands of an expert. Hope you don’t mind my mentioning it. If you would like to have someone unpick that, um, attempt and try again I can put you in touch with a friend in Paris who would rise to the challenge.’
Joe smiled his thanks.
The doctor pressed on. ‘Three hundred and fifty thousand Frenchmen, Commander, were declared missing in combat during the four years of war. Blown to bits, vaporized, buried under tons of earth, some just wandered off quietly perhaps. Leaving behind in limbo countless grieving relatives. And these late releases from prisoner-of-war camps have cruelly led their waiting families to nurse a false hope that one day their loved one will be restored to them. People whose dear ones disappear find it genuinely impossible to believe that they will not come marching through the door at any minute. So much grief, so much yearning, and never an end to it.’
‘You touched a nerve, I think, with your appeal to the public?’
Varimont sighed and raised eyebrows to the ceiling. ‘Opened up a hornets’ nest might be more apt,’ he said. ‘Can I say I regret taking such action, I wonder?’
‘Not if you find this poor man a loving home, monsieur,’ said Dorcas. ‘If you can do that, it surely will have been worth the effort. I think it’s a noble and worthwhile thing that you are doing.’
Varimont was startled by the interruption but charmed by the sentiment. Joe was surprised too, by the ease with which Dorcas had spoken in perfectly acceptable French.
‘Mademoiselle has a slight accent of the Midi, I detect?’ said Varimont.
‘My mother is from the south, monsieur. My father is English but we always spend our summers in Provence,’ Dorcas explained.
‘The nightmare,’ Joe picked up hurriedly. ‘Has it been repeated?’
‘Yes. Once more. After the first explosion I did wonder whether to administer a barbiturate. Calm him down. But my second thought was to let it flow on and camp outside his door to catch any recurrence from the start.’
‘And did our man have anything further to add?’
‘Look here — we could go on calling him “our man. . this poor chap”, we could even refer to him as G27 which is the number on his door, or we could call him — as I do — Thibaud.’
‘Thibaud?’
‘One of the first Counts of Champage. Very popular name hereabouts. Also the name of my great-uncle whom he much resembles.’
‘Perfect,’ said Joe. ‘Tell me what Thibaud had to say for himself.’
‘The same short scenario played and replayed. I was able to write down the words — excuse the spelling!’ He inclined his head to Dorcas, drawing her into the discussion. ‘We do not all have a facility for languages.’ He handed over a sheet from his folder and continued to talk as Joe read it.
‘His dream was accompanied by actions as well as words. He sat up on his bed with a shout of alarm then leapt up and strode about the room, gesticulating madly, quarrelling you’d say, with someone he could see very clearly but who was invisible to me, watching from the door. Then he sank to his knees and screamed out in English: “For God’s sake, man! Don’t do this! Forgive me! Forgive me!” The effect was very disturbing — very. . theatrical. Does what I’ve written make sense?’
‘Certainly does,’ said Joe. ‘This is an Englishman begging for his life.’
‘With some success,’ said Dorcas thoughtfully, ‘as he’s still with us.’
Varimont was silent for a moment then said hesitantly, ‘Yes, you’d say so. Begging for his life. But, Commander, the odd thing is that his subsequent actions belied the words. He pleaded for mercy with those words, in perfect English as far as I am any judge, but then he acted out a quite extraordinary scene.’
The doctor got to his feet and moved to the centre of the room. The short, fastidious, suited figure should have produced the comical effect of a Charlie Chaplin movie as he launched into his mime but Joe and Dorcas watched in growing horror as the meaning of his gestures became clear.
Eyes rolling in a pantomime of rage, Varimont lifted his right foot and kicked out viciously at something (or someone) unseen three feet above the ground. With a snarl, he reached across his body and drew a sword from its scabbard with his right hand, then, holding it up in front of his face with a two-handed grip on the hilt in a hideous semblance of a priestly gesture, he plunged it downwards again and again.
Chapter Six
As they made their way along darkening corridors, following the fast-moving figure of the doctor, Joe was aware of Dorcas scurrying along at his heels, staying much closer than she would normally have done. The architecture would have detained him in other circumstances, its massive Gothic arches and stone-flagged corridors demanding attention. An ancient monastic building of some sort, he would have guessed, which, by being incorporated at a later date into the structure of the town’s defences, seemed to have survived the bombardment. Though not entirely unscathed. Distantly, he heard the hammering and shouting of a building team at work on repairs and found he was reassured by the sounds of ordinary life going on in this disconcerting place.
Varimont turned a corner and walked down a narrower corridor, pausing finally in sepulchral gloom in front of a stout oak door. Before he could insert his key in the lock Joe commented: ‘Formidable defences. You must reassure me, Varimont, that your Thibaud presents no danger to visitors.’
‘Oh, none at all. These precautions are for his protection. Be reassured, Commander. . mademoiselle. When he is not suffering a nightmare, he is calm itself. He sits, sometimes stands, looking into an internal distance. He has a slight reaction to some of his visitors. Some he obviously likes and he expresses this by reaching out to touch their arm, very briefly. Do not be alarmed should he do this, mademoiselle. It is a sign perhaps of his returning humanity.’
‘What does he do if he takes a dislike to someone?’ Dorcas thought it prudent to ask.
‘Rather embarrassing, I’m afraid! He climbs into his bed, pulls the blanket over his head and goes to sleep. Come and meet him.’
The tall slender man was sitting on his bed, under the single window, hunched and quiet. Not presented in hospital pyjamas but duly ‘spruced up’, Joe thought, in a white shirt and pressed trousers. The late afternoon sun caught his head, lighting hair that must once have been blond but was now streaked with grey. He was facing away from them and made no response to their entry or Varimont’s cheerful bellow: ‘Hello there, Thibaud old chap! And how are you doing today? Look here — I’ve brought you some visitors.’
There were chairs in the sparsely furnished room but they didn’t sit. There were brightly coloured posters on the grey walls but the visitors paid no more attention to the scenes of the Châteaux of the Loire than did the occupant of the room. They trooped in and stood awkwardly in front of the patient in a line watching him. Joe had once had to escort a terrified young lady from the cinema, passing in front of a row of people absorbed by the last reel of The Phantom of the Opera. Their faces had shown much the same expression as the one he was now studying with attention. The man’s focus was elsewhere and someone passing through his field of vision was a momentary annoyance, no more. The doctor chattered on, behaving as though his patient perfectly understood him. In the middle of a sentence and out of joint with the doctor’s speech, the man suddenly reached out and stroked his arm twice. At once, Varimont responded with the same gesture. Treating this as the establishment of some kind of communication, he drew Joe forward and introduced him.