The Secret Agent

by Elisabeth Hobbes

  They were motioned up a wooden ladder into a cramped attic, where two agents were waiting for them. A man in his late thirties and a woman who was closer to fifty in Sylvie’s estimation.

  ‘Welcome to France,’ said the man in French. ‘I am Hugo. This is Marianne.’

  Not their real names, or even the ones that would appear on their identification papers. These would be field names designed to protect them when they were carrying out missions that involved meeting other people. Sylvie’s was Monique. It was confusing but gave her confidence knowing how much care was taken to protect the agents and résistants from accidental discovery or intentional betrayal. Hugo spoke with a slight inflection to his vowels; Sylvie marked him down as not being a native speaker. A genuine French accent was one of the advantages she had over British agents who might be fluent but who had not grown up speaking French as a first language.

  ‘You’ll spend the night here and leave at first light,’ Hugo continued. ‘Marianne has instructions for each of you. Memorise them. It would be safer if you do not share the contents with each other. You know the names of your final destination and contacts, of course.’

  ‘We do.’ Sylvie nodded. Librarian’s chief went by the name Marcel. She would finish in Nantes but knew nothing beyond beginning the next morning with a walk across the countryside to the nearest small village. At each stage, she would give the same greeting to the courier and introduce herself by the name of Monique. The courier would take her onwards.

  ‘We will bring you food,’ Marianne said as she handed over two envelopes. She really was French. There was something in more than her accent that distinguished her, and Sylvie felt a momentary twinge of anxiety that she had been in England too long and would not pass as a native of her own country. She studied Marianne with interest, taking note of her hairstyle and planning to fix hers into similar chestnut waves before she had to appear in public.

  The farmer’s wife brought a tray of bread and cheese and, even more welcome, a jug of weak cider. Sylvie and the other man devoured the food while Marianne filled four earthenware cups that she passed around.

  ‘To your success and safety,’ Hugo said. They all raised their cups and toasted each other.

  ‘You should get some sleep now. You leave before dawn,’ Hugo said.

  Marianne took Sylvie’s hand. ‘Monique, I thought you would prefer to sleep with the farmer’s children.’

  Sylvie nodded. She shook hands with her fellow traveller. ‘Good luck.’

  ‘And the same to you, mademoiselle.’

  She followed Marianne down the ladder and into a small bedroom. A mattress had been laid between two cots that each bulged with a small body. The largest bundle made a snuffling sound and shifted as the child roused and settled almost instantaneously. A scratched leather suitcase, patched up with parcel tape, stood at the end of the bed. It contained Sylvie’s new clothes and her identity papers. Sylvie had acquired a very good suitcase recently, but she had to leave it safely stored in London because it had the name of the English company engraved on the lock plate, so would immediately reveal her as a foreigner. She put her snakeskin leather bag beside it. That was French and had been a gift from her father and her stepmother, Maud, on Sylvie’s twenty-first birthday. It was the most fashionable thing she owned and also the most useful, being large enough to carry a great deal more than the type of dainty little clutch bag that had been in fashion before the war.

  ‘There’s a biscuit tin in the bottom of the case wrapped in your slip,’ Marianne whispered. ‘When you get to Angoulême, tell the charcutier to give it to Jean-Pierre. He’ll know who you mean.’

  Sylvie nodded. Marianne leaned forward and kissed her cheek, then hurried away. Sylvie settled down on the mattress, not bothering to undress. None of it felt real. She wondered what was in the biscuit tin, then decided she would rather not know. Better to be able to deny knowledge if she was caught and questioned.

  If she was caught…

  She shivered and pulled the crocheted blanket over her head. That didn’t bear thinking about. She reached for the gold cross on the chain around her neck and felt reassured. She did not put her faith in the God whose symbol she wore, but rather in the ruby-coloured paste gem in the centre. Concealed within was a small pea-sized ampoule filled with cyanide. If she was arrested by the Gestapo, it would most likely mean her death one way or another, but poison would ensure a quicker end. As she closed her eyes, she fervently hoped it would not come to that.

  Looking back, Sylvie would remember the early-morning hike across the fields to the village as a time of serenity and peace before the consequences of war in France sunk in. The sun quickly burned away the dawn mist, and the air smelt of wheat and wildflowers. Aside from one alarming encounter with a bad-tempered nanny goat, Sylvie reached the village without incident. The goat had been standing on her rear legs, chewing at the low-hanging leaves of a tree, and had taken exception at having her breakfast interrupted by a walker. She let out a bleat that would have rivalled an air-raid siren and lunged towards Sylvie, teeth bared. Sylvie scurried past before the sound drew every German patrol from miles around, clutching her bag and suitcase high, thinking she’d happily face the Gestapo a dozen times than that mad-eyed creature!

  She walked into the village and encountered the first evidence that she was in a country under occupation. The village, like so many in France, was centred around a small square with a small-windowed church and a town hall. The church doors were closed and instead of a Tricolore, a swastika hung in front of the mairie. Sylvie stared at the flag. It was the first time she had seen one in the flesh, and the red, black and white seemed disturbingly normal in the sunshine. A handful of old women were milling around the square, waiting to buy bread. They looked Sylvie up and down with suspicion, and she shivered. She had no idea how great the German presence was in this prefecture, or what the attitude to the occupiers might be. These women could go to the grave denying having seen a stranger or could rush straight to inform the authorities.

  She hurried on to the address she had been given and took possession of a bicycle that had seen better days. She began her long and arduous bicycle ride to Angoulême, glad to leave the silent village behind, but full of foreboding at what she might yet encounter.

  Things were even more shocking there. The next town had been devastated by Allied bombing a fortnight before, and streets of houses had been reduced to rubble. Small children of both sexes climbed through window frames devoid of glass, throwing fragments of brick at each other while adults wearily passed by. She edged her way through the streets, taking in the pock-marked walls where bullets had lodged or chipped away the stone.

  She stared in dismal resignation at the swastika flags hanging proudly outside the town hall. Pedestrians walked purposefully, avoiding eye contact. Though hair of all shades passed by, every face was a hue of white. No one Jewish. No one black or olive-skinned. This was not the France she had longed to return to, where the theatre had buzzed with people of all colours and nationalities. Not the country she had missed with such heartfelt misery from across the English Channel for almost a decade.

  She took a deep breath, remembering the way she had argued her case with Uncle Max and Miss Atkins to be sent to France, and counted to ten as she let it out slowly. These sights made her all the more determined to succeed in her mission.

  The charcutier who introduced himself as Claude explained the safe house where Sylvie spent the night had narrowly escaped being destroyed. He took the biscuit tin without question and poured Sylvie a small cup of something fiery. They toasted their mutual good luck before he showed Sylvie to a small guest room.

  ‘Unless you’d rather share with me?’ he asked hopefully.

  He wasn’t bad-looking, and the promise of sex on her terms with absolutely no repercussions was almost tempting, however, Sylvie declined with a smile.

  ‘Bad timing, I’m afraid,’ she lied, patting her lower belly.

  Claude
left her to sleep, seemingly bearing no grudge at his rejection.

  From Angoulême the next morning, a softly spoken elderly man who introduced himself as Papi drove her all the way to the outskirts of Cholet in a Peugeot baker’s van. Sylvie sat beside him and learned of his youngest daughter who had died in an airstrike on Paris and his wife who had died in the bombing of the city two weeks previously. He brushed off condolences but gripped Sylvie’s hand tightly.

  ‘I am too old to fight, so I play my part how I can,’ he said. ‘I will take you to my daughter. She will look after you.’

  He delivered Sylvie to a café in a small square. The sign pronounced the café was closed. Papi knocked and when the door opened a crack, he was greeted by a grey-haired, handsome woman who pulled Sylvie and Papi inside and was introduced as Eloise. They had no sooner sat down at the table when a young man banged on the window. He gave a signal that meant nothing to Sylvie, but Eloise and Papi sprang into action.

  ‘You have to hide! Quick!’ Eloise dragged the table out of the way, kicked the rug free and pulled open a trapdoor. ‘Down there.’

  Sylvie had been trained to obey orders. Without question, she lowered herself into the hole. Papi passed her luggage down.

  ‘Stay silent.’

  The space was not big enough to stand up in. Sylvie crouched in blackness, clutching her knees, and listened to the sounds from above. There was a dull flopping sound, then the dragging of wood as Papi and Eloise returned the furniture to its rightful place, then creaking as they sat down.

  Sylvie waited, hoping desperately her mission was not at an end before she had even reached her destination. Sylvie had never suffered from claustrophobia, but the air was too hot and thick to breathe comfortably. She tried not to think of coffins. Of her father last August, lying in his. Of her mother, eleven years previously, so delicate against the cushions. Dying in France and being buried on the same soil as Angelique would be some comfort, but not much.

  The sound was muffled by the rug and thick floorboards, but when the soldiers came, the noise reached Sylvie’s ears. Hammering on a door. Male voices followed by female pleading. Different male voices, then weeping, begging. More shouting and then the piercing sound of glass breaking. She huddled into a smaller ball, clutching the cross with her suicide pill and waiting for the burst of light and discovery.

  But discovery never came. After what felt like hours, she heard the sound of the table being moved overhead and the trapdoor opening. Sylvie clambered out of the hole and together, not speaking, she and Papi covered the trapdoor again. It was only when they were seated at the table dipping stale brioche into bowls of coffee that Sylvie began to tremble. ‘I thought they were here for me,’ she said.

  Papi sighed. ‘So did I.’

  ‘It appears my neighbour’s son has been making his opinions about the Führer known rather loudly in places he should not have been. He had Jewish friends who disappeared in the night and he doesn’t know where they went.’ Eloise closed her eyes. ‘The Germans who took him were in uniform, not men in black coats with black cars, so maybe he will escape with a flogging or short imprisonment.’

  Sylvie said nothing. There was nothing to say. The boy may come back, or he may not. His friends could have been among the lucky ones who escaped, but most probably not. Eloise gathered the empty coffee bowls.

  ‘You can sleep on the top floor in my room. The bus to Nantes leaves at eight. Make sure you are on it, and God protect you in your fight.’

  The next morning, Sylvie finished her journey to a village on the outskirts of Nantes on a local bus, sitting beside a garrulous woman who spent the entire journey telling Sylvie about her ailments. Whether or not the woman was part of the Resistance network or not, Sylvie never found out, but it meant that when she left the bus, the pair of Germans patrolling saw two women, who had obviously known each other for years, saying goodbye.

  Sylvie completed the final part of her journey alone with a sense of awe. She had been smoothly passed from person to person. So many lives were being risked for her sake and that of France. Now she was here, she now had a much fuller appreciation of the network that stretched across France. A network she was now a part of. She might be tired and travel-stained, but her sense of determination was redoubled. SOE and the Resistance had to succeed. She must not appear nervous or suspicious or she would get no further than the first control point. She hoisted her bag and suitcase – lighter now she had passed on whatever the mysterious contents of the biscuit tin had been – and continued on her way.

  She followed her nose as she walked the two miles into the centre-ville then sat on the edge of a fountain in the square. Nantes was a city Sylvie was unfamiliar with, which meant that she was unlikely to be recognised and exposed. It also meant, however, that when she sat on a wall outside the Nantes-Orléans railway station at the appointed time and Marcel did not arrive to meet her, she had no one to turn to for help. At first she was not worried. She waited for a quarter of an hour, keeping her eyes peeled for a blond man with a red band in his hat to approach and give her the first part of the code exchange. She left at twelve fifteen precisely, having been told to wait no more than fifteen minutes. She was supposed to return at two o’clock and then again at four and six and every even numbered hour until Marcel appeared. When eight o’clock came and went that evening, Sylvie began to grow more concerned. She wondered if she or the final contact had made an error and the meeting should have been at the Paris-État station where freight was brought into the city. If that were the case, the meeting would have to wait until the following morning. The Paris-État station was now entirely for the use of the German army, and anyone French who frequented the area was unlikely to be an upstanding member of society. To go there on her own in such a place at ten at night would attract unwanted – and probably unpleasant – attention. At every stage of the journey she’d seen women loitering on the streets, offering themselves with resignation or desperation to passers-by. To Sylvie’s mind, the curiosity of German authorities was barely worse than the interest of French men looking for a good time with a prostitute.

  She found a bistro and ordered some food. While she ate the bowl of thin onion soup, she ran through the implications. They were stark. Something had prevented Marcel from making the rendezvous. Did it mean the entire unit had been discovered? And if so, had Marcel managed to hold out for the expected twenty-four hours needed to abandon the safe houses and cover all traces of other members? She might have come to a town deserted by the network. If that were true, it had happened in the past three days because otherwise her mission would have been pulled before she left England.

  The sky was completely dark when Sylvie left the bistro, wincing inwardly at the cost of her meal. Inflation had hit France hard, and it seemed people had become resigned to paying more to receive less. Nevertheless, her brief rest had fortified her spirits, and now she had a plan. There was no way for Sylvie to contact anyone in England. She was in limbo, waiting, but at least she knew where she could begin her search for someone in the network who might help her. She had a cover story and an identity. A job was waiting for her in the city.

  Swinging her suitcase and trying to keep her spirits high, Sylvie wove her way through the narrow streets of the old town in search of the nightclub named Mirabelle.

  Chapter Four

  From the outside, Club Mirabelle looked run down. It stood halfway up a narrow road on a hill leading away from the river. Perhaps before the destruction wrought on Nantes by the war and subsequent occupation, this would have been a high-end establishment, but now it showed evidence of neglect.

  The club was double-fronted in one of the three-storey buildings that lined the street. A plain black door was set between wide windows that at some point had been boarded up with black-painted wooden planks. It could have been due to the war and the need to block out any escaping light, but Sylvie suspected the alterations had been done prior to that in order to create an atmosphere. The sign ou
tside looked strikingly old-fashioned. A laughing woman held out the flounces and ruffles of her skirts to display one leg raised in a high kick. In her right hand, she held a flute of champagne that appeared to defy the laws of physics given the tilt of the glass. The club’s name curled in cursive script from leg to arm. Perhaps this was Mirabelle herself.

  If she had been in England, Sylvie would have turned her nose up at any suggestion she spent an evening there. Still, she reasoned, disreputable might mean it was less likely to be frequented by Germans and she would stand less chance of being discovered for who she was.

  Sylvie pushed the door ajar ever so slightly and was greeted by the sound of laughter and piano music. Seedy and down at heel it might be, but Mirabelle was busy tonight. She hesitated, wondering if the middle of a busy evening was the best time to try to make contact with someone, or whether she should return tomorrow when there would be fewer witnesses to the conversation she needed to have.

  She was still wavering indecisively when voices speaking German made her start. A quartet of soldiers in uniform were making their way down the empty street towards the door. Sylvie tensed, recalling the brutal arrest of the boy in Cholet, but they were strolling, not goose-stepping. They were off duty, not a patrol out to round up suspects for interrogation.

  They walked two abreast, and one in the first pair nudged his young companion and gestured towards Sylvie. The two walking behind spoke in German to each other, laughing. It was obvious to Sylvie that the young man was being teased and that she was the subject.

  ‘Are you going inside, fräulein?’ asked the man who had begun the joke, switching to halting French.

  ‘She is waiting for you, Valter,’ said the oldest and, from the insignia on his uniform, the most senior officer of the group.

  The young soldier looked visibly relieved that the attention had moved on from him and stepped aside to let his superior – presumably, ‘Valter’ – pass him and kept his eyes firmly ahead as if he was standing to attention on the parade ground. Sylvie suspected nothing short of a direct order from the Führer himself could have induced him to meet Sylvie’s eye.