An Officer and a Spy

rubbish. ‘Is there any way,’ I ask Lauth, taking out the petit bleu again, ‘that you could photograph this and somehow cover up the tear marks so that it looks as if we just intercepted it in the mail, as you did with the Dreyfus document?’
    ‘Perhaps,’ he says doubtfully. ‘But that was only in six pieces, whereas this is in about forty. And even if I could, the side with the address, which is the most vital part of the evidence, isn’t franked, so anyone examining it for half a minute would know it had never been delivered.’
    ‘Maybe we could get it franked?’ I suggest.
    ‘I don’t know about that.’ Lauth looks even more dubious.
    I decide not to press it. ‘All right,’ I say. ‘Let’s just keep these documents between ourselves for the present. In the meantime, we should investigate Esterhazy and try to discover what other evidence there may be against him.’
    I can tell that Lauth is still unhappy about something. He frowns; he chews his lip; he seems on the point of making a remark but then changes his mind. He sighs. ‘I wish Major Henry were here, and not on leave.’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ I reassure him. ‘Henry will be back soon enough. Until then, you and I can deal with this.’
    I send a telegram to my old comrade from Tonkin, Albert Curé, major with the 74th Infantry Regiment in Rouen, telling him I’ll be in the area the next day, and asking if I can drop by and see him. I receive a one-word reply: ‘Delighted.’
    The following morning I eat an early lunch in the buffet of the gare Saint-Lazare and catch the Normandy train. Despite the gravity of my mission, as we leave the suburbs and head into open country I feel a surge of exhilaration. I am away from my desk for the first time in weeks. It is a spring day. I am on the move. My briefcase sits unopened beside me while the rural scenes slide past my window in a pastoral diorama – the brown and white cows like shiny lead toys in their lush green meadows, the squat grey Norman churches and red-roofed villages, the brightly coloured barges on the placid canal, the sandy lanes and the high hedges just coming into leaf. It is the France for which I fight – if only by piecing together the garbage of a priapic Prussian colonel.
    Just under two hours later we are pulling into Rouen, chugging at walking pace alongside the Seine towards the great cathedral. Seagulls swoop and cry over the wide river; I always forget how close the Norman capital is to the English Channel. I set off on foot from the station towards the Pélissier barracks, through a typical garrison district with its dreary chandleries and bootmakers and that certain kind of grim-looking bar, invariably owned by an ex-soldier, in which local civilians are not encouraged to drink. The Seven-Four occupies three large triple-storeyed buildings of alternating stripes of red brick and grey stone peeping over the top of a high wall. It could be a factory or a lunatic asylum or a prison for all one can tell from the outside. At the gate I show my credentials and an orderly leads me between the two dormitory blocks, across the parade ground with its flagpole and tricolour, its plane trees and water troughs, towards the administration building on the far side.
    I climb the nail-studded stairs to the second floor. Curé is away from his office. His sergeant tells me he has just started a kit inspection. He invites me to wait. The room is bare apart from a desk and a couple of chairs. The high, small-paned window is slightly ajar, letting in the spring breeze and the sounds of the garrison. I hear the ring of horses’ hooves on the cobbles of the stable block, the rhythmic tramp of a company marching in from the road, and further in the distance a band rehearsing. I might be at Saint-Cyr again, or back as a captain at divisional HQ in Toulouse. Even the smells are the same – horse dung, leather, canteen food and male sweat. My sophisticated friends in Paris express amazement that I can stand it year after year. I never try to explain the truth: that it’s rather the unchanging sameness that attracts me.
    Curé bustles in full of apologies. First he salutes me, then we shake hands, and finally awkwardly – on my initiative – we embrace. I haven’t seen him since the de Comminges concert last summer, when I got the impression something was needling him. Curé is an ambitious man, a year or two older than I. It would only be human for him to feel a little envy of my