out over a table with another staff officer, a major. As Lamb entered they both looked up.
The major spoke. ‘Yes? What is it now? We’re very busy in here. If it’s that bloody mayor again, tell him that his surrender to the Jerries will have to wait. We’re not planning to go anywhere just yet.’
He turned back to the map.
Lamb coughed and saluted. ‘No, sir. Lieutenant Lamb, sir. North Kents.’
The colonel looked up this time, returned a casual salute and raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes?’
‘I have a vitally important message from Brigadier Meadows, sir, from 1 Corps. He ordered me to get it to GHQ by whatever means possible.’
The major and colonel looked at each other, then the colonel spoke, smiling. ‘And I suppose I’m the nearest thing that you can find to GHQ?’
‘Yes, sir. I suppose so, sir.’
‘Yes, you’re very probably right. I think I am.’ He turned to the major. ‘I am, aren’t I, Simpson?’
‘Yes, sir. I’m very much afraid you are. At least here in Tournai at present.’
The colonel frowned. ‘A signal from Dewy Meadows? A vital message? That hardly sounds likely. Not from Dewy.’
Lamb cringed. He had of course thought all along that the brigadier seemed an unlikely source of vital information, if not actually bogus. But nothing surprised him now in the army.
The colonel continued, puzzled, ‘Where did you find him?’
Lamb knew as he said it that his answer would sound absurd. ‘At Waterloo, sir. On the battlefield, that is. He was bivouacked there.’
The colonel laughed out loud. ‘Waterloo, eh? Trust Dewy. What the devil was he doing there?’ He looked down at the map. ‘Isn’t that in the French sector anyway? Simpson?’
The major nodded. ‘French Second Corps, sir. Though we think they’ve been overrun by now.’
‘Poor old Dewy’s probably in the bag by now then. That’ll teach him to get lost.’ He turned back to Lamb. ‘He was lost?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you got through to here with the message? How the devil did you manage that?’
‘I just followed the map, sir, and stayed off the main roads. There were air attacks, dozens of them, sir, and refugees. Thousands. But we just read the map. It wasn’t that difficult.’
The colonel nodded. ‘We? How many men are you?’
‘My platoon, sir. That is, less casualties. Twenty-six at present.’
‘You brought twenty-six men with a message from Dewy Meadows, cross-country to here, presumably through enemy lines, and then you found me. You did well. You’re quite a man, Mister . . . what did you say your name was again?’
‘Lamb, sir. Peter Lamb.’
The colonel paused for a moment, then looked at the major. ‘Lamb? Wasn’t that last dispatch about a chap called Lamb?’
The major nodded. ‘Yes, sir. Report came down from the Coldstreams. Apparently he held up a German division at the Dyle. Took out a bridging party single handed with grenades. They thought he might be mentioned in dispatches.’
‘Was that you?’
Lamb nodded. ‘Yes, sir. I suppose it was.’
The colonel thought for a moment and then looked at the major. ‘Do you think?’
‘Well, sir. If he is who he says he is, then he’s the best we’ve seen here. It’s worth a go, sir.’
The colonel looked back at Lamb and seemed as if he was about to say something. But then he stopped and stared hard at Lamb. ‘Hold on. Who won the cup last year?’
Lamb frowned. ‘Sorry, sir?’
‘Who won the cup, man? The cup. The football league. Who won it?’
Lamb racked his brain. Names tumbled out – Everton, Liverpool, Chelsea. Football had never been his game. Rugby and cricket, yes, from school. He had been in the first XV, full back. But football? He had of course mugged up enough to be able to talk to the men about it. A fellow officer had once told him that was one of the smartest things a subaltern could do. He tried desperately to remember. The colonel was looking worried. He turned to the major who, Lamb noticed, had flipped open the flap of the holster at his belt.
Then suddenly Lamb had it. ‘No one won it, sir. There was no league last year. It was abandoned after war was declared. Everton won the first division . . . and Portsmouth won the FA Cup.’
The colonel gave a sigh of relief and smiled. ‘Good God, man. That was close. Didn’t think you’d get it. Thought we’d have to shoot you. Well done, Lamb. Sorry. Can’t be too careful. Fifth columnists. Now where’s this vital note?’
Lamb walked forward and handed over the paper to the colonel, who carefully unfolded it and read.
Lamb was astonished. Here he was surrounded by chaos and yet somehow the news of his exploit had reached the staff. Some things, he thought, still worked in the British army. And then he wondered whether, if they knew about that, they had also heard of his blowing up the civilians on the bridge. He hoped that Fortescue had been discreet.
The colonel looked at him and smiled. ‘So you managed to give Jerry a bit of a bloody nose, didn’t you?’
‘Well, we did manage to cut up a column pretty badly, sir. Three days ago.’
The colonel looked at him, narrowing his eyes. ‘Well done, Lamb. Good work. You might even get a gong.’
The colonel was still smiling but Lamb worried that he might know about the civilian deaths. He wondered whether he should explain it, but did not know what he could say. He froze, waiting for the inevitable ‘but’. Instead the colonel beamed at him. ‘Yes, damn good work, eh, Simpson?’
‘Yes, sir. Damn good.’
The colonel turned back to the note before handing it to the major, who handed it back. After a while the colonel folded it up and laid it on the desk. He stared at it for a while and then looked at Lamb, fixing him with deep brown eyes. ‘Have you read this?’
‘No, sir. Of course not. Absolutely not.’
‘No. You wouldn’t, would you? Silly of me. But I think you’d better have a look now as you’re here, before I give it to the General whenever I find him, seeing as you went to the trouble of getting it here.’ He handed the piece of paper to Lamb. ‘Go on then, man.’
Lamb took it and looked. It was headed in French: ‘Headquarters 1st Army’ and bore the insignia of the French military. It was dated 16 May. It read:
‘No information. Communications cut. All liaison unworkable. Rear areas blocked with convoys and wrecked columns. Petrol trains ablaze. Utter chaos.’
Lamb looked up from the paper at the colonel. ‘The Brigadier told me it was urgent. I thought it must be information about the enemy.’
‘It was urgent. Two days ago. Not any more, though. Meadows hasn’t a clue. It just tells us what we already know. The German First Panzer Division under Guderian have broken through at Amiens and cut off the French 1st and 9th Armies. To put it bluntly, we’re surrounded.’
The major walked away from the table and stared out of the window at a desolation which mirrored the destitution in his soul.
Lamb gazed at the colonel: ‘Christ. I’m sorry, sir. But I mean . . . God help us.’
‘Yes, God help us, Lamb. Although I doubt whether even he can now.’
The colonel pointed to the map. ‘In four days we’ve been pushed back sixty miles. And that’s only in the north.