Free Dial M for Merde by Stephen Clarke

voicemail, too, and I gave her the same information. If they had to send out search parties, there were now two women who could testify to my last known whereabouts.
    â€˜Let’s go,’ I said, returning to the group and offering myself up for sacrifice.
    â€˜Yeah!’ The redhead flashed her boobs in celebration.
    We wound our noisy, cheering way along the promenade and past the church tower, to a dark path that led around the base of the cliffs. Most of the guys and girls were pairing off, trying each other’s mouths for size. Male and female hands were getting busy, drawing shocked looks from families on a sedate evening stroll.
    I tried to divert the broken-nosed guy’s attention from the nearest bikini top by asking him about his diving exploits.
    In between attempts to bite through a bikini strap, he said that they often went diving in completely uninhabited coves and bays along the coast. He had a strong southern accent, I noticed. He pronounced all this syllables very clearly, and said ‘kota’ for ‘côte’ and ‘baza’ for ‘base’. But he soon lost interest in shoptalk and started telling the girl that he was going to give her ‘a bang’.
    â€˜A bang?’ she echoed. ‘Hey girls, François here says we’re going to get a bang.’
    There were renewed shouts of ‘wahay’ and more jokes about snorkels, and I wondered whether coming along had been such a good idea after all. We had now arrived on a section of beach that was practically invisible from the main part of the village, and unlit by the street lamps. I didn’t think it would be very long before clothes were being shed and Anglo-French friendships sealed with much more than a kiss.
    â€˜You going to give me a bang?’ the redhead asked me.
    â€˜He means a bath,’ I said, feeling like a party-pooper. ‘It’s the way he pronounces bain .’
    â€˜Oh. Well, it’ll do for starters,’ she said. ‘Fancy a skinny dip?’
    â€˜Let’s have a drink first, shall we?’ I grabbed a bottle from a shopping bag and went over to one of the soldiers who had produced a corkscrew. It was the dimple-chinned guy.
    â€˜Do you often come to the beach at night?’ I asked him in careful French. ‘To swim or dive, I mean.’
    â€˜Uh?’ The sound of small waves breaking on the pebbles had drowned out part of my question, so I repeated it. ‘Oh, oui,’ he answered. ‘Day, night, anytime. But not usually with girls, uh?’
    He was having a bit of trouble aiming his corkscrew so I took it off him and got to work on my own bottle.
    â€˜It is frightening, no, swimming at night?’ I asked. ‘The big fish?’
    â€˜Oh, pff,’ he replied, sniffing at danger. ‘These Anglaises are more frightening, no? Are all English girls like this? Can’t they at least pretend they’re not easy? I prefer Spanish girls. They are more Catholic, they resist. You have to—’
    â€˜Sharks?’ I asked quickly, before he could tell me how to break down Spanish resistance. ‘You see sharks?’
    â€˜Uh? No, not here. In Martinique sometimes. In Djibouti, yes. But I’m not scared of them.’ He gripped my shoulder as if to protect me from marauding sea life.
    â€˜Djibouti, that is near Iran, no?’ Before he could correct my wildly inaccurate geography, I got in with my key question. ‘Did you see esturgeon in Djibouti? Or here?’
    â€˜ Esturgeon? What do they look like?’
    â€˜Just like those girls,’ I wanted to say, ‘white bellies and big floppy gills.’ Behind the commando’s back, several of the girls were stripping off, aided by helpful soldiers. The girls were squealing and egging each other on, and a couple of them were starting to tug at the guys’ belts. I only had a few minutes before all conversation would be at an end, I calculated, and did