The Winter Agent

by Gareth Rubin

He had set about rebuilding the circuit and there were now four other agents with him, tasked with aiding the local Resistance groups, directly sabotaging German movements and – more than most SOE networks – gathering, through bribery, theft or tapping lines, intelligence about German operations. Reece had been selected, he was informed, due to his three previous years in naval intelligence, giving him an understanding of how information could so often overcome the force of arms.

  The circuit had known successes: Operation Beggar Five had gleaned vital information about the building of the Germans’ Atlantic Wall, which was designed to repel any amphibious Allied invasion on the western French coast. And they had known failures: Beggar Twelve had resulted in two brave railwaymen being arrested and executed for sabotaging locomotive axles. That failure came painfully to Reece’s mind far more often than the successes.

  The place de la Concorde was full of women strolling about in feldgrau uniforms, the ‘grey mice’, brought over by the Germans to administer the occupation and support the troops. Those who had just arrived stared around and pointed out landmarks to their friends. Those who had been here a few days carried handbags stuffed with jewellery and clothes snatched from the shops of the Champs-Élysées. And above them, the signposts were now in French and Gothic-scripted German as the occupiers sought to control the very geography of Paris.

  Some of those occupying forces were milling about in front of the heavenly Louvre when Reece reached it a minute later. More than a palace, it was a sweeping statement of all that France had once aspired to be: majestic, elegant, serene. Its art gallery was the finest in the world, Reece’s father had once happily informed him as they stared at its curving harmony. It now gave Reece a grim sort of satisfaction that those men standing outside would be disappointed when they went in – little of the collection was left. Most, including the world’s most famous portrait, had been hidden away years ago to protect it from prying occupying fingers.

  Also in the Louvre’s fine courtyard was a group of people, a hundred or more. Most of them, dressed in neat but inexpensive clothes, were ranged before a platform upon which a man dressed in a blue uniform, with a band on his arm displaying a symbol reminiscent of a curved swastika, was shouting to make himself heard. Some members of the audience wore the same uniform and blue berets. He was lit by arc lights.

  ‘France is stronger than ever before!’ he cried, his fists striking down towards a lectern. ‘We of the Aryan race have purged our nation of its foreign Jewish influences and corrupt Freemasons.’ He stood back for a moment, to allow a few shouts of approval. ‘France is a nation once more, once more with the holy mother Church at our centre. Once more with our children ready to live honourable lives.’

  Such honour, Reece thought to himself as he rode past the man ranting in the snow, surrounded by foreign officers stealing his nation’s past, piece by piece. Barely even pride.

  Thirty minutes later, he finally made it to the hilltop cobbled stones of Montmartre. Degas, Matisse and Renoir had lived and worked here. Toulouse-Lautrec had painted the girls in the nightclubs that sprang up clinging to these steep streets and the area retained a subdued air of artistic revolution. He walked his bike towards the most famous club of all. It was 6 p.m., dark, and if he didn’t hurry he would be questioned. Although the Paris curfew was from midnight until five in the morning – and then only loosely imposed – if he ran into a militia patrol they might be bored enough to start investigating him.

  He turned into the rue des Saules, a lively street full of wide boys who had somehow avoided being sent to Germany for the Obligatory Work Service, older men and women who had been in the street since the time of Toulouse-Lautrec and would stay there until they dropped down dead, and stern-faced militiamen who couldn’t wait until the streets were cleansed of these filth under the tutelage of Pétain and the Pope. And there was one building the militia hated with particular venom: a salmon-pink cottage that had been a centre for all the artistic vices. Reece dawdled as he passed it, wheeling his bike, its rear wheel squeaking once on every turn, and glanced up at the sign, which showed a boisterous rabbit leaping out of a cooking pot. The cabaret within had come to be named after this sign: Au Lapin Agile. The moniker had replaced the former name for the bar: Cabaret des Assassins.

  Reece stopped, propped his bicycle against a wall and crouched down to examine the chain. He adjusted it, taking the time to look around. Nothing out of the ordinary. He checked each direction again, stood up and chained the bike to a tree. He didn’t like doing that, in case he needed to leave quickly, but bicycles now cost a month’s salary for a working man. At least the snow had stopped – it would have been biting cold on the hilltop.

  Entering, he found a handful of old men lined along wooden benches with glasses of piquette – the thin and unsatisfying ersatz wine made from adding water to already pressed grapes and fermenting the mush – set in front of them on rough tables. They were all smoking thin roll-up cigarettes or long, narrow pipes. A couple of them had grandsons by their mute sides – the fathers must have been forced labour in Germany. A few young women were giggling together in the corner while, on a tiny stage area, a white-whiskered accordionist was packing up his instrument, to be replaced by a pretty young singer with gamine hair. The lights were low and she began to sing a light-hearted song about arriving in Paris as an ingénue and being corrupted by the locals. The young women began to chant cheerily along, giggling at the occasional raunchy line.

  ‘Yes, sir?’ the waitress, carrying a tray of glasses and a near-empty purse, asked expectantly.

  ‘A glass of red piquette. Whatever’s the cheapest,’ he said, glancing casually around the bar as he placed a couple of francs in her hand. He received a glass in return. He knew the bar well enough for an RV; not so well as to be recognized by the regulars. There were three exits: the main street door, a side door and one rear passageway that led to the back room and toilets.

  He thanked the waitress and ambled over to a table in the corner, close to the rear passage. No matter how many meets he had been through safely, they still touched his nerves because the environments were unpredictable – civilians, public transport, the weather: any or all of them could scupper it. So he would be on edge until Luc arrived and gave the safe signal.

  Reece had recruited Luc himself. A local printer and photographer, he had been useful in producing false travel permits sooner than they could be sent from Britain. Unlike the rest of the circuit, he therefore had no cover story, instead living under his own identity, Luc Carte.

  Reece unrolled a copy of Le Matin from his pocket and set about reading it: the safety code to say that all was well. But as he glanced at the articles, he noticed the barmaid’s gaze reflected in his glass. She was staring straight at him. Then she looked away and glanced along the corridor that was out of his sight, and subtly shook her head at someone. He heard the creak of floorboards and she stared at him once more before returning to collecting glasses. Informants and collaborators were a greater danger than the Germans and he fought to control a twist of worry.

  Reece watched, alert to any further sound, and when she turned her back on him he quickly stood and moved to the mouth of the corridor to check. His fingers slipped towards the knife in a sheath hidden under his jacket lapel, a slim steel blade about the length of a finger. It wasn’t the way he wanted the RV to turn out – much was riding on it – but he might not be given the choice.

  ‘I wouldn’t, my friend.’ Reece wheeled around. The man to his left had looked up from his book and was speaking just loudly enough for Reece to hear. The man, who was wrapped in a thick scarf, gestured for Reece to come closer. ‘Black market.’ He waited for recognition to steal across Reece’s face. ‘They’re no better than the Boche – getting rich off our empty bellies. No better at all, if you ask me.’

  Reece glanced towards the corridor. Perhaps that was it: petty criminals, rather than men set to watch him. He relaxed a little and his fingers pulled back from hi
s lapel.

  ‘I see, thanks,’ he said. Yes, it was easy to read too much into a situation, he told himself, to be over-cautious. He moved back to his seat and tried to concentrate instead on the singer, who was now on to a song of lost love. As she reached the end of the chorus, the main street door opened and a small, neat man with a trim goatee walked in. He had a book poking from his coat pocket, his own safety sign. Reece settled back in relief.

  He lifted his hand, as if greeting a friend whom he had arranged to meet for an evening in the relative warmth of their local bar. Luc returned the casual, complacent greeting.

  ‘How are you?’ Reece asked as Luc pulled out a wooden chair.

  The man who had spoken to Reece got up to go to the bar.

  ‘Fine, fine. Frozen, but fine,’ Luc said as he sat and unbuttoned his jacket. Reece wondered if the film and prints were held within its lining. ‘You just can’t get warm these days, can you?’

  ‘You can’t. Not at all,’ he said. In order to seem natural, they would have to spend an hour or so chatting, chewing the fat before they could part. The secret, Reece had found, was to forget all about the RV and just chat to a friend – after all, it could be a lonely life, unable to talk to people who knew who you really were. Even if it hadn’t been poor security to make friends with civilians, there was always the barrier that you couldn’t even tell them your real name.

  ‘Were the paintings good?’ Reece asked. Something flitted across Luc’s face. A grave look, before it was wiped away.

  ‘Yes. They showed the anniversary.’

  Reece’s grip tightened on the edge of the table. So the photographed files concerned D-Day. That was why they were needed so urgently in London. Luc dropped his voice to a mutter inaudible to anyone but Reece. ‘Defence operation.’ Reece lifted his finger to stay Luc from saying anything else. He would see the pictures himself soon.

  The man to their side came back with a glass of grenadine. ‘Can I get you a drink?’ Reece asked Luc.

  ‘A beer, please. Whatever they have.’

  Reece stood and moved to the small bar in the corner of the room. An old woman was taking her time choosing from the sparse offerings. She dropped her purse and Reece bent down to help her pick her few dirty coins from the floor. Her gnarled fingers scrabbled impotently on the floorboards. ‘Please, madam, allow me,’ Reece said, placing his hand on her elbow. She smiled in gratitude and creaked herself upright.

  He managed to recover the last of the money but just as he was about to drop it back into a hand-embroidered purse the street door burst open and two men, one middle-aged and heavy-set, one young and athletic, both wearing brown leather trench coats and dark hats, came charging in. The young singer’s mouth fell open and she cowered into the corner of the room.

  Luc stared at the men, then at Reece. They knew – the whole bar knew – who these men were. It was just a case of whom the Gestapo were looking for. All conversation, all movement, ceased, as if the hands of the clock had been halted. Reece stood up slowly and glanced surreptitiously at Luc. He saw the fear in the other man’s eyes. The next few moments, he knew, would decide whether they would be alive a week from then.

  And yet, as the Gestapo men stared around, checking faces for their quarry, Reece noticed that he felt strangely calm. He had imagined this moment so often that now it had come its potency was almost drained. And they wouldn’t take him. He had long ago decided that. His fingers touched the third button on his jacket. Hidden within its split rubber was the L-pill, a glass capsule of potassium cyanide that would take five seconds to work. He knew that if he couldn’t talk or fight his way out he would cheat his captors of his life. But for now: wait and watch.

  The younger Gestapo officer’s eyeline fell on Luc. ‘You,’ he said, pointing a leather-clad finger.

  Luc’s face fell.

  And then, madly, he ran.

  His chair crashed to the floor as he attempted to bolt to the side door. Reece willed him to make it but knew that it was a forlorn hope. Before he could even get his hands to the exit, the Gestapo man had leaped forward, crossing the room in two bounds, and grabbed hold of Luc to drag him down. Reece started for them both – driven not by decision but by instinct, muscle memory. But a hand took hold of his jacket.

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ Reece looked around and saw the heavier German pointing a pistol at him. A Radom, he saw, copied from the American automatics. ‘Don’t move.’ As he did so, the far door opened and a splinter of light fell on a man in the uniform of an SS major.

  ‘Please,’ Luc gasped. The major stepped calmly inside. For a second Reece felt for his Colt, but it was back in his room. Charlotte would have transmitted with it beside her then hidden it behind the skirting board, wrapped in rags. And a voice at the back of his head said that was probably for the good – he would have little hope in a firefight against three men.

  The heavy man, who had a rough tattoo of a knife on his hand, pushed Reece aside and spun around to address the whole bar in German-accented French. ‘Any of you move and I’ll take you all in!’ He brandished the pistol.

  ‘I surrender!’ Luc cried, putting his open hands in front of his face and wincing as if already feeling the blows. ‘Gentlemen, I surrender. I won’t fight.’ Everyone in the bar stood still and silent. So much of France, these days, did the same. So many men lived on their knees. The athletic man pulled a pair of handcuffs from his trench coat and bound Luc’s wrists with a grin.

  The SS major came further into the room, scanning it efficiently. His gaze fell on Reece. ‘Do you know that man?’ he asked Reece, calmly, in good French.

  ‘No, sir,’ Reece replied. ‘No.’ He did his best to sound meek.

  ‘Not at all?’ Reece shook his head. He hoped no one in the bar would contradict him.

  The major turned to the heavy-set Gestapo officer. ‘Where was he sitting?’

  ‘Over there, sir,’ he replied, pointing to Luc’s overturned seat.

  The SS officer looked to the customer who had sat next to Reece. ‘Did they speak to each other?’ he asked.

  Reece looked into the man’s eyes. The man was nervously fiddling with his scarf.

  ‘Sir?’ he said.

  ‘I asked you if these two men’ – he waved at Reece and Luc – ‘spoke to each other. Look at me!’ he barked as the man glanced at Luc. ‘Tell me now, or you will be joining them.’

  ‘I …’ Reece heard the man’s voice failing him. ‘I … didn’t see them do so, sir.’

  ‘I will give you another attempt. And if you are lying, it will go hard on you. Did these two men speak to each other or greet each other at all?’

  Reece forced the thought of what the Gestapo did to SOE agents from his mind. He had to remember that he was an innocent and frightened passer-by caught up in something he didn’t understand and wanted no part of. And he prayed none of the other patrons would speak up from fear or the hope of payment.

  The man with the scarf looked at the glass of piquette Reece had bought. His fingers slipped towards it and drew it in front of himself. ‘No, sir,’ he said.

  The major gazed around the bar, seemingly challenging anyone to dispute what the man had said. The waitress dropped her head. ‘Is that true?’ he asked her.

  ‘I think so, sir.’

  Reece silently thanked her. Paris was full of barmaids who would happily inform to the Germans. She was not among them.

  ‘Herr Sturmbannführer?’ said the Gestapo man who still held the gun on Reece.

  The major’s eyes met Reece’s and stayed there for a while, as if searching for something. ‘Check his papers.’

  Reece reached into his jacket and handed them over, including a deliberately dog-eared identity card in the name of Marc LeFevre, a man who ran a tabac, and his ration book.

  The Gestapo officer checked them. ‘Why haven’t you used your tobacco ration?’ Reece looked at the full set of coupons. He couldn’t tell why on earth the man would care. Then he realized. The full book
had come in from London with the last drop – a gift to keep the circuit’s spirits up – and the man must have suspected something like that. It was a trick Reece would remember next time.

  ‘I have bronchial problems. I worked in a forge for years. If I smoke cigarettes, I cough up blood in my sputum.’

  The man looked disgusted and thrust the book back at Reece. ‘Now, what –’

  ‘Wait,’ interrupted the younger officer who held Luc. They all looked at him. ‘Where was this forge?’ His accent was French. So he wasn’t Gestapo, like the others, but probably Carlingue, the Gestapo’s French auxiliaries, used for sniffing out resistants.

  Reece had the story pat and rehearsed, but still it was nerve-wracking to repeat it. ‘A village near Reims.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Dortin.’ He looked over at Luc. How had they found him? How much did they know? His mind was working on two tracks: to deflect the questions put to him, and to work out what, if anything, lay behind them.

  ‘Dortin? My aunt lives there. Colette Bernard, she runs the post office. Do you know her?’

  Reece thought for a second and shook his head. ‘The post office is run by a gentleman named Édouard. I’m afraid I don’t know anyone called Colette Bernard.’

  ‘Where …’

  The SS major was becoming impatient. ‘We don’t have all night,’ he said.

  ‘Sir, if …’

  ‘Send the prisoner to Amiens and be done with it.’

  ‘Yes, Sturmbannführer Klaussmann.’ The officer glared at Reece as if slighted. ‘Get out,’ he barked.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Reece walked rapidly out of the bar, with every step fearing that he would hear an order to stop or feel the grab of a hand. But then he was outside in the freezing cold with the streetlights, painted blue to ward against air raids, leaking a dim glow to the snowy pavements below them. Luc had been taken, and the photographs were gone. He had no idea how much the Germans knew about the circuit or were about to find out. And he had to get back to Charlotte. He unlocked his bike with a shaking key and rode away at speed.