大象传媒

About a fortnight after the German surrender in Tunisia I was sitting at my typewriter in 27 Area Cash Office which occupied the first floor of Barclays Bank. A wood-and-glass partition ran the length of the room. Suddenly I saw it wave! A second later came an enormous explosion...nothing in the London blitz to equal this. Silence. Then the sound of glass splintering and falling into the Rue de la Liberte. My glass partition did not splinter but remained distorted. I went to the door but could not open it. The frame had buckled. From the street came screams and the sound of many running feet. Someone was on the other side of the door and, between us, we forced it open. Sergeant Tom Barrand stood there, very pale. Air raid? No siren. Brigadier Rabino emerged from his office, Captain David from his corner. Outside the Arabs were screaming and running to and fro.

There were no more explosions. Calm returned. From our rooftop we could see a thick column of smoke rising from the harbour. We discovered that as part of the German surrender, a great ammunition-dump had been loaded on to a transport-ship and brought into our harbour. Some said it had been booby-trapped, some alleged careless handling. We never discovered the truth, nor the number of casualties among the dockside workers and those of our lads who were said to have been unloading the vessel. We could see that the entire superstructure had vanished, leaving a mere shell. That shell burned for three days, sending showers of 'fireworks' into the night sky. There had bee an explosion of another sort in March. Since our arrival in November 1942 the wife of the bank's caretaker, Marie, had cooked our rations, darned our socks and made herself generally useful. She was a dark, rather austere woman - about 45 I guessed. When I developed a nasty chest-cold she appeared with a box containing a number of glass cups. I was to remove my shirt and lie on my stomach. She took the cups, singly, burned a wisp of cotton wool within to create a vacuum and slapped them on my back. There must have been a dozen of such cups. The feeling was curious - a sucking sensation. This, she assured me, would draw out the infection. I thought it like a recipe from some alchemist's manual - but it worked.

Marie and her husband were Spaniards and he, Sanchez, reminded me of Pablo Picasso. He stumped about the place with a pronounced limp, had little to say to us. Sometimes he and Marie had a tiff and the noise penetrated the wall separating our quarters from their flat. One night the noise of battle rolled for more than an hour followed by silence. Then the communicating door flew open and Marie appeared with an automatic pistol in her hand.

'Take it... take it!' she implored 'He will kill me and kill himself.'

'Where is he?' I asked.

'Out... out. He's gone to a bar to get drunk.'

I took the weapon and concealed it. Soon afterwards Sanchez appeared in the doorway, wild-eyed, demanding the return of his pistol. We affected ignorance. Then he ran down the stairs into the bank premises, now deserted and locked up. Marie followed and so, at a respectful distance did I and Sergeant Challenor. Sanchez had found another automatic, that kept in the cashier's drawer Marie tried to taka it from him (she was now in screaming hysterics) and we waited for a chance to down him. But he was too watchful, backed up the stairs again and vanished into his own quarters, leaving the door open.

Then, in a strange, crazy voice he began a sort of litany: 'Come here Marie! Come here Marie! I want you in here. I want to speak to you, speak with you.' We consulted hurriedly and decided against summoning the local gendarmerie. Sergeant Tom Barrand began to load his rifle but the rest of us, horrified, reminded him that its use would mean a military court of enquiry and a confrontation with the French authorities.

'Get his step-mother,' hissed Marie. 'She knows how to deal with him!'

This lady lived nearby but the only way to reach the street was though the flat where the armed Sanchez held the fort Two of us (I was not one) volunteered to fetch her. We all went inside and there he stood near the door to the street, throwing the gun from one hand to the other. Our two heroes brazened it out, taking no notice of him and opening the door. The rest of us returned to our own quarters with Marie. At last we heard the rescue-party returning and the sound of a female voice, furious, loaded with venom and scorn. For five minutes at least it raged and then a huge woman emerged with cowering Sanchez in tow. ' Have you ever seen a little boy who knows he is going to get a good hiding?' I wrote to my wife Minna when describing this incident. 'She handed us the second gun and peace was restored. We discovered that some of Sanchez' fellow-Spaniards had taunted him as being a complacent husband, standing by while we made free with his Marie. Next morning all was normal.'

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