Page 46 of The Dark of the Moon
He stops again, swallowing hard, but this time he avoids my gaze, and his eyes fill with sadness.
‘There was a storm brewing, as there so often is in that ocean out there beyond the dunes. It arrived sooner than we’d thought. My uncle still went out beyond the point in his fishing boat, but the conditions were wild. When he reached the marker buoys, there was no sign of Ben and the rowing boat. He waited as long as he could, then had to return to the harbour. Two days later, one ofour neighbours told us a body had washed up on the beach at Le Bois-Plage.’
A great sob escapes from me then, a paroxysm of pain and grief released at last. I realise it’s been trapped somewhere deep within me for decades, ever since the day I heard Ben had gone missing. The tears flow down my cheeks. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to cry like this before. Kendra leans over and wraps her arms around me, supporting me, while the others sit in silence.
Once the squall of emotion has passed a little, Monsieur Bertaud reaches across the table to take my hand in his, before continuing. ‘We recognised Ben straight away. But because he was in civilian clothing, we persuaded thegendarmesthat it wasn’t a matter for the Germans. We knew, you see, that ifles Bochesdiscovered it was a prisoner who’d escaped, he wouldn’t have been given a proper burial. He would just have been thrown into one of the pits they used to dispose of such bodies. The man we’d got to know, who so wanted to get back to his wife and children, deserved better than that.
‘They’d have asked a lot of questions of us, too, if they discovered we had gathered so much information about the prisoners and played a part in his escape. It wouldn’t have been good for us, and it might even have jeopardised the whole Resistance network, of which my uncle was a part. Anonymity was safer and so we felt it was better to bury him as an unknown civilian. He was interred here in our local graveyard, in that grave markedInconnu, where we could remember him. And where we could wait and hope for his family to come and find him some day.’
The silence sits heavily in the room when Philippe stops talking.
Finn breaks it, saying, ‘There. I knew it was Ben. So, Philly, now do we have enough evidence? Can we ask the War Detectives to give him a proper burial, and you can have Closure?’
I take a deep breath, trying to take it all in, trying to make myself think clearly. ‘It’s certainly a strong case. But we would probably need something more, something to prove the man who’s buried in that grave is incontrovertibly Ben. A body washed up on the beach ... it happened often here, especially after a storm.’
Then Philippe gets to his feet and opens one of the kitchen cabinets, rummaging inside. He brings out a tin, which rattles as he pulls off the lid, and empties something into his hand. ‘There was one more thing too, Madame. We took this from his body. He wore it beneath his shirt, tied around his neck on a length of cord.’
He holds out his closed fist and motions for me to open my own hand. And into my outstretched palm he drops the signet ring I gave to Ben on the day we were married. I hold it up to the dusty ray of light filtering in through the kitchen window and there are his initials. BCD. Just the way he’d written them, time after time, in my ATA logbook. And there, too, running along the inside of the band, are the words I’d had engraved for him:I’ll always be yours. P.
As I hold the ring, clutching it tightly now, the memories flood back in, wrapping their arms around me as if they are Ben’s arms, enfolding me again at last.
I remember the first time I saw him as he walked towards me outside an aircraft hangar, both of us rookies but determined to play our part in the war that had just begun. I remember dancing with him at the club and our first kiss at a darkened railway station, then how he stood and watched as the train pulled out. I remember Ben hanging on to my hand as if he’d never let it go again, in the back of an ambulance on the morning he brought me back from France, having flown all night to bring me home. I remember a day in February when I walked up the path to the door of the church in Tangmere to be married to the man who waited for me inside at the altar, turning to smile at me as I entered, his eyes as blue as the winter sky outside. I remember him holding Amy as a tiny baby,his face alight with wonder as he gazed down at her, while I stood next to him, holding Teddy, at their christening. I remember the dark nights and long years without him, never giving up the search to try and find him.
Tears spill down my cheeks again, a manifestation of the bewildering mixture of emotions that overflow from my heart, too much for my body to contain. The room is silent as I pull out a tissue and try to blot them away, but it is quickly soaked and still more tears come. Kendra hands me a hanky and I look up. Now it’s my turn to be pinned beneath the scrutiny of four pairs of eyes.
It is Philippe Bertaud who breaks the silence this time. ‘I never forgot him, Madame. I tended his grave. And I kept the ring. Just in case his wife or his children ever came looking.’
I look from Philippe to Dan to Kendra. And then I look at Finn. For once, his eyes meet mine and he doesn’t flinch and drop his gaze.
I smile through my tears. And then I say, ‘Well, Finn. I think at last we have our evidence, don’t you?’ I hold out my hand, unfurling my fingers, the ring gleaming softly in my palm. ‘You’ve done it. You and Monsieur Bertaud have given me the final, definitive proof that now – at last – we’ve found Ben.’
Finn
We had to cancel Philly’s flight home again. She said at this rate her family will start to think she’s been kidnapped by us and is being held hostage on the island. But now she had some great news to tell them, about finding Ben. I think her twins must have been very pleased to know where their dad was, at long last.
There was a lot that had to be done officially to persuade everyone that it really was Ben in that grave. It wasn’t just as easy as digging up the coffin and taking him back to England. First of all, we had to go back to tell thegendarmes. That took quite a lot of time. We showed them the evidence we’d gathered, which included the rubbing I’d done of Ben’s name from the citadel walls that we’d shown them before to persuade them to look up the prison records from the war years. Of course, that reminded them that I’d been trespassing, and I was a bit worried they might have to arrest me all over again, but the main one just whistled through his teeth and said, ‘Bravo,jeune homme,’ so I knew they were going to let me off. Then everything had to be passed to the mayor and they had to speak to Philippe to get his testimony. And then it all had to be escalated to the Powers That Be, which meant a particular department in the French government. There was an awful lot of paperwork to fill in.
Philly got in touch with the War Detectives in Britain too, and they put some pressure on the French authorities when they seemedto be questioning things for a bit too long. Then there was even more paperwork. Mum and Dad helped. Philly went home, but we stayed on the island longer than we usually do to make sure no one could forget about Ben all over again.
Then we went home for Christmas and waited some more. But at last, in the spring, they decided they could dig up the coffin in theInconnugrave and do a DNA test on the person who was buried there. They had taken DNA samples from Philly’s twins to compare. The results came back 99.99 per cent probable that it really was Ben in the coffin. And as Dad said, that was enough certainty even for the French authorities.
I had assumed Ben would be taken back to England, but, in fact, that turned out not to be the case. Philly told me there’s a rule about it for people who died in either of the World Wars: ‘served together, died together, buried together’. So they are buried with their compatriots, in war graves in the country where they were killed.
‘Are you disappointed you can’t take him home with you?’ I asked, when she came back in the spring.
‘A bit,’ she said. ‘But it’s a comfort knowing he’ll have a proper grave here on the island. And that means there’s somewhere for me to come and visit. Amy and Teddy too.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘And Philippe and I will take good care of it when you’re not here.’
‘Thank you, Finn. I know you will, and that means a lot to me.’
Her twins, Teddy and Amy, had come to the island with her this time. They were here for the ceremony, but they also wanted to meet Philippe and hear the stories of their dad and how he tried so hard to escape and get home to them all.
Philly stayed with us in the house, but Teddy and Amy stayed in a hotel, because otherwise it would have been a bit too cramped for everyone. They’re nice. Teddy used to be a pilot in the RAF, flying planes like his mum and dad, and Amy was in the ForeignOffice, but they’re both retired now and even have children and grandchildren of their own.
I took them to Philippe’s house. I’ve been going there sometimes to help him with his bees. He says I make a good beekeeper because I can stay focused, even when we open up the hives and take out the frames holding the honeycomb to spin it and extract the honey. The bees buzz around us, but it’s OK as we’re wearing our white suits and hoods with netting on. I like wearing the suit. It makes me feel safe and cocooned, so I can stay calm. Sometimes I wear it around the house or to go to the market with Mum and Dad because it protects me from the noise and the people, just like it protects me from the bees. I’d like to wear it all the time. It would be good for going back to school in, but then I suppose the other kids would think I was even weirder.
Philippe’s bees seem to trust him, and he says they never sting if you treat them with respect. He believes in doing it the old-fashioned way, only taking the honey that’s left over after the winter so that the bees have had enough supplies to keep them going. In the spring, once the blossom on the trees in the orchard comes out, they can collect nectar and begin to make more, so we can take what’s left as there’s no risk of them starving.
