best.’
He salutes and I whip him back a good one and spin on my heels with the portfolio under my arm. I’m going to need some pencils and drawing pens but I don’t want to screw anything up.
I stop outside at the orderly’s desk and he has the pass. He also lets me have two 2B drawing pencils and, after some convincing, a black fountain pen. I figure I’ll stroll around town and look for any kind of a stationery store with a real drawing pen and some India ink. I’ll also need a ruler and maybe a T square. I’m deep into the map making business.
More than that, I’m now practically a tourist. I stroll up the hill to look at the town church, it’s something I’ve wanted to see. On the way, two MPs jump out of doorways and start hassling me. I show them my magic pass and do everything but salute. I could be a Nazi spy who just counterfeited that pass and I’ll bet those idiots’d let me by anyway.
Maybe Williams is right, nobody’s doing much of a great job running this war. Hey, maybe I can do all these drawings and sell them to the Germans. They might give me a German discharge in exchange. I could work on my German, disappear in the Alps somewhere and nobody would know the difference. No, they’d get me. With my luck, some hot-shot American skier would discover me in my little hut on the side of the hill and turn me in.
The church door is locked, but just down the hill on the other side is a little combination newspaper stand and stationery shop. There’s an old lady and a very pretty girl running it. As I move toward the pretty one, the old one blocks my way. She’s surprised to see a soldier walking around in broad daylight. All these people must know we’re here but there’s some kind of agreement that we’ll all pretend we don’t see or know anything.
I try to explain what I want. The old lady is confused, but the young one steps forward. She has very dark hair and beautiful violet eyes. She pulls down some dusty boxes and there are crow quill pens, and engineering pens, great for map drawing, but I’d have bought split goose feathers from her. She also has some quality pink pearl erasers. This master spy does make mistakes once in a while.
She also brings out some rulers, wooden and thick, twelve inch jobs and, miracle of miracles, a transparent T square.
All the time, I’m trying to work up a conversation. I can’t tell them what I’m really doing, although they’ve probably figured it out faster than I did. So, I tell them I’m an artist and will be doing drawings around town to pass the time.
I think of an old film with Ronald Coleman where he wanders through the English countryside with a portable easel on his back singing, ‘When a body meets a body coming through the rye’; I romanticised over that one for six months. It could be one of the influences that made me want to be an artist. Of course, he meets the most beautiful girl in his wanderings and she thinks he’s ‘God’s gift to earth’ because he can draw and paint.
I wonder if I can talk Taylor into letting me buy a portable easel instead of hauling a map table around. He said I should make myself inconspicuous. Maybe I could even wear civilian clothes, some old tweeds and a Sherlock Holmes cap with a bill. The English would never shoot me as a spy, or maybe they would. I’ve lost a lot of confidence in the people who make those kinds of decisions.
There’s a great wooden combination paint box and easel in the window. I ask the price. It’s just under ten pounds. Taylor could never get a requisition through even if he’d try. But I act as if I’m seriously considering it, all in the interest of security. I ask the young girl her name and she tells me its Miss Henderson. I look at her, pretending I’m Ronald Coleman.
‘Might I call you Violet?’
She blushes and turns around. I figure I’ve blown it. What would Ronald Coleman have done?
Luckily I have a bit over ten pounds in my pocket, more than enough. I ask for a receipt. I’ll need it to get my money back, if that’s remotely possible. Then I remember, I forgot India ink. I ask. Without a word she turns and takes a bottle from one of the shelves. She twists the top open to check if it’s dried up. It is. She opens three before she finds one that’s okay. India ink is like that. It goes to seed or something and you have bits of black grit in ink plasma and there’s no way you can make it flow through a pen, especially a crow quill pen or an engineering pen. It’s very nice of her to check.
‘Thank you, Miss Henderson. There’s nothing worse than having black sand for ink.’
She looks at me with those violet eyes.
‘My name is really Michelle. It’s a French sounding name isn’t it?’
‘My name is William. I’m called Will by my friends. I hope I’ll be seeing you again.’
She smiles, gives me my change, looks me in the eye.
‘Perhaps William, you might need some more India ink.’
I begin walking around the town, measuring distances, counting buildings, taking notes, humming ‘Coming Through the Rye’, thinking about violet eyes. This is going to be one terrific assignment. I’m pacing from the church to the mayor’s office, trying to keep count, when I see Michelle coming up the street. She has a small cloth basket with packages in it. I know, from my wandering around, that today’s market day, the day when the farmers come in to sell the few things they can sell that aren’t rationed. I look up and lose count. Michelle stops in front of me.
‘What are you doing William? I see you marching up and down the streets marking things on your papers. You don’t look to me as if you are doing any drawings.’
So, I confess. I’m probably giving away state secrets to an enemy spy who’s been posted in this town for almost twenty years and has a secret radio in her bedroom. I like to meditate on her bedroom.
‘I’m trying to make a map of the town. My officer thinks it would be a good idea, in case any Germans come charging over the hill we’ll all know which way to run.’
She swings her bag around so she’s holding it with two hands in front of her. She looks at me, inquisitively, the same way she did in the shop.
‘Well, William, I’m quite sure there are maps in the council archives. I think they would let you use them for your work, if you asked. In fact, if you want, I’ll ask. My uncle is a council member.’
She smiles and turns away. She’s about five steps back up the hill when Ronald Coleman asserts himself.
‘How can I find out if this would be possible. Where should I go, Michelle?’
‘Come to the shop this afternoon. I will know by then.’
She continues on up the hill. I’m totally confused. I can’t even come within a hundred of how many paces I’d done when we met. I wait until she’s out of sight, then sneak up the hill to the church again. I start pacing anew. At the bottom of the hill (the whole town is on the side of a hill) is a wooden cattle fence with a cattle gate. I go through it and I’m out in open country. Everything is deep green. We have some fair-to-middling green in Pennsylvania, but this green is the kind you expect to find in Ireland.
Taylor’d said I was supposed to give some idea of the surroundings for this town so I go through the gate, turn and march across fields to another rolling hill beside the town, from which I have a great view of the entire area with the church on top of the hill, the line of streets and all the little side streets crossing it and down to the fence. There are sheep in the fields. I figure the fence is to keep
