by Terry Deary
She watched as the warden stopped at a cottage on King Street and rapped on the door. When it was opened he said, ‘I can see a light through your curtains. Is that a signal for the British bombers?’
‘There are no British bombers,’ the Frenchman inside grumbled.
‘No, but there will be as soon as they see that light. Now close your blackout curtains tighter, or turn out the light, or pay a hundred-franc fine.’
The door was slammed in Warden Walter’s face, but soon after the curtain was shut tight.
There was a distant ‘bang’ as the explosives in the telegraph pole finally brought it down. The timer was late. Every light in Bray went out except in the oldest houses that still had gas and oil lamps.
Brigit followed the warden and at last reached the first mark on her grand-maman’s map. Walter had turned a corner. She slipped an envelope under the door of Blacksmith Legrande, knocked and ran to hide in a doorway across the road to make sure the door opened and the huge man found the envelope.
Then it was the turn of the schoolmistress, Marie Marcel, on Zola Street. On over the moon-washed cobbles to Green Street, and the reporter, Henri Caron.
Then she went on to the church. Boughs on the old yew tree creaked in the evening breeze and Brigit shivered a little. ‘There are no such things as ghosts,’ she muttered to herself as she walked through the gate and found a gravestone to hide behind. It was one with a good view of the church door.
The clock on the church tower showed twenty-five past nine. Five minutes to wait.
*
Legrande took the envelope in his smoke-stained hand and swallowed hard. It had his name, written in ink, on the front. On the back it said ‘Gestapo Headquarters, Somme District, The Old School, Bray’.
‘What is it?’ Madame Legrande asked as he held the letter up to a smoky oil lamp.
‘A letter.’
‘I can see that. What postman delivers letters at this time of night?’ she snapped.
‘Delivered by hand,’ he replied, turning it over.
‘What does it say?’
‘Blacksmith Legrande.’
‘Yes, but what does it say inside?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I haven’t opened it.’
Legrande’s wife gave an impatient sigh. ‘Don’t you think you’d better? It could be important – in fact it must be important if someone delivered it at this time. Open it. Hurry up. I want to get to bed. We’ve had too many late nights.’
The blacksmith’s powerful hands trembled as he placed a finger under the flap and opened it. He pulled out the letter as if it were a hand grenade with a loose pin and unfolded it. He read it aloud.
‘Dear Legrande… that’s me.’
‘Yes, we know that. Who is it from?’
‘Major Strauss, head of the Somme Gestapo.’
‘Trouble.’ His wife sighed. ‘What does he say?’
‘It doesn’t make sense. He says that my work as a spy for the Gestapo is priceless. He has captured the British secret agent, thanks to my tip-off. He has a large payment for me and a new task, but I must not be seen at the school headquarters… and he must not be seen coming to my forge. He wants me to meet him at the church door at nine thirty tonight when he will tell me more. It’s signed Major Strauss.’
‘Is that his signature?’ Madame Legrande asked.
‘How would I know?’
The woman pulled a shawl tight around her shoulders. ‘It’s a trap. If you turn up at the church door at nine thirty then you will be admitting that you work for the Resistance. He’s probably sent a hundred of these letters around Bray. There will be a whole troop of soldiers waiting with machine guns.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ Legrande muttered.
‘No, you didn’t,’ his wife said sharply. ‘Just as well you have me as the brains in this family. So what will you do?’
‘I will go…’
‘Yes?’
‘To bed.’ He crumpled the letter and threw it on the last embers of the fire where it flared and died.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
‘Good evening, madame. Take a seat’
Major Strauss had the buttons on his uniform fastened into the wrong buttonholes. His face was sour as crab apples in the smoky light of an oil lamp. ‘Yes, Corporal Rudolf, I have phoned Berlin to tell the general about our capture – at least, I spoke to Colonel Roth when you brought Madame Fletcher back here. And, yes, he was sure there would be a promotion for us both. We could be posted back to the comfort of Berlin and cosy beds.’
Rudolf was shuffling from one foot to the other, waiting for the major to stop talking. ‘And do they want us to question her?’
‘It can wait till morning, can’t it?’
‘I have been thinking, sir…’
‘At this time of night? Can’t you save your thoughts till the morning? I’m tired.’
‘But, sir, if there are any others in the Resistance, they will know something’s happened to this British spy. When they find out we have executed her, they will scatter and we’ll never find out who they are. We have to act now. Get her to tell us their names and send an army squad to arrest them before they know what’s hit them.’
Major Strauss sighed. ‘Yes, Rudolf, you are right.’
The old man appeared to glow and grow a few centimetres. ‘I am, sir?’
‘And if we uncover a nest of traitors, we’ll end up with enough medals to sink a battleship,’ the little man said and rubbed his hands. ‘Let her out now.’
The corporal strutted out of the classroom that the major used as an office, across the hall and into the room with the cupboard. He unlocked it and opened the door by the light of an oil lamp. ‘Come out. Hands up. Try to run and I will shoot,’ he ordered.
Aimee Furst stepped out and smiled at him. ‘Thank you, Corporal. It’s good to stretch my legs.’ She looked up at the unlit, fly-specked bulb.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Just checking to see that the bomb I planted under the power line went off. I see it has. I think maybe you should have inspected it before you arrested me.’
Rudolf turned pale. ‘What bomb?’
Aimee gave a sad smile. ‘When you arrested me, I was planting a bomb in the pole that carries the power lines. I managed to set the timer before you could stop me.’
‘Set it? Timed for when?’
Aimee said with a shrug. ‘It’s gone off, hasn’t it? Did you think it was just another failure at the power station? Well, it wasn’t. It was sabotage and you let it happen. I’m guessing you’ll be in trouble.’
‘I’ll shoot you,’ the old soldier said, jerking his rifle towards her.
‘You’re going to shoot me anyway so why should I care? The bomb has gone off and the Gestapo in Berlin will be furious. Another act of sabotage in Bray that you failed to stop. They may even shoot you and your major when they arrive.’
Rudolf jerked the rifle again. ‘Across the hall to the major’s office,’ he ordered. She obeyed.
Major Strauss was fussing with papers on a desk and looked up when Aimee walked in. He tried to look calm but blood was pounding in his throat and he had to loosen the collar on his black uniform. ‘Good evening, madame,’ he said. ‘Take a seat.’
‘You are very kind,’ Aimee said calmly and sat opposite him.
‘You are a British spy.’
‘I am.’
‘And you work with a Bray Resistance group.’
‘No, I don’t. There are no French people in Bray willing to work for the Resistance.’ She leaned forward and looked the major in the eye. ‘They know you are in charge. They are afraid of you. Mr Churchill knows of you and he knows this district is safe while you are in command.’
Major Strauss seemed to inflate like a peacock. ‘Mr Churchill has heard about me?’
Aimee gave a soft laugh. ‘Who hasn’t? Strauss, the terror of the Gestapo, we call you. We tried to g
et the folk of Bray to rise up against you, but they refused, because of you. And then a strange thing…’
‘What?’
‘We decided to send an SOE agent into the town to sabotage the enemy supplies. And do you know how many of my SOE friends offered to come?’
‘No?’
‘Not one,’ Aimee said. ‘All too afraid. Afraid of the great Major Strauss.’
‘I can understand that,’ the major said and fluffed his peacock feathers still more. ‘So you are telling me you acted alone?’
Suddenly Corporal Rudolf stepped forward. ‘Excuse me, sir. She was alone when I caught her at the power line – the one that’s just blown.’
‘The lights went out over an hour after you arrested her.’
‘She says it was on a timer, sir.’
‘And you failed to stop her?’ the major squeaked.
‘I did, sir, but I just wanted to say she can’t have acted alone on all the sabotages.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because of the tank train, sir. That took a huge effort to loosen the track bolts. It was either someone really strong, or a few people heaving on a long lever. She couldn’t have done it alone.’
‘Yes, Rudolf. I was just about to say that. So, madame… your name, by the way?’
‘Aimee Furst. You can call me Aimee.’
‘So… Madame Furst, the names of the Bray people who helped you, please?’
The door to the office creaked open and three pairs of eyes turned to see a girl standing at the door. ‘Brigit?’ Aimee gasped. ‘This wasn’t part of the plan,’ she muttered.
Brigit fixed her eyes on the major. ‘I have the names of the Bray traitors here,’ she said, waving a piece of paper. ‘The French people willing to join the Resistance now they’ve seen how Maman has done it.’ On it were written three names:
Camille Olivier
Hugo Philippe
Bastien Robert
‘You have betrayed these honest French people,’ Aimee said with a soft cry.
‘I had to, so I could save your life, Maman,’ Brigit said.
‘This is your daughter?’ Major Strauss asked.
‘It is.’ Aimee nodded.
‘Mr Churchill sent a child to fight with the SOE?’
‘Churchill is a fool,’ Brigit said, with as much venom as she could. ‘Churchill never realised that Maman and I are both fighting for the true fatherland. For Germany.’
Chapter Thirty-Nine
‘My dream… my wildest dream come true’
Brigit had delivered the letter to Blacksmith Legrande, Marie Marcel and Henri Caron, then hidden in the churchyard to see which one turned up. She wasn’t surprised to see who it was. When the traitor had given up waiting and gone home, the girl hurried to the school and tiptoed through the door. It smelled of chalk and book dust, the teachers’ cigarettes and the caretaker’s floor polish. The scents took her back to her own school in Castle Bromwich and she shuddered.
She had stepped through the blackout curtain and stood by the door of Major Strauss’s office. She waited for her maman to give her the cue to enter the room with the list of names.
Aimee shook her head. ‘Brigit, you have given away our great secret. We were only supposed to tell it to Major Strauss’s boss in Berlin.’
The little man jumped as if he’d grasped a live wire. ‘General Fischer?’
‘That’s the name,’ Aimee said.
‘You have a secret for General Fischer? But you can tell it to me,’ he said in a soft voice.
‘Brigit’s already told you I am working for Germany,’ said Aimee.
‘She’s lying. Let me shoot her,’ Corporal Rudolf said.
Major Strauss rose to his feet. ‘You failed to defuse that bomb, man. If there is any shooting to be done, then it will be the general shooting you. He arrives tomorrow and if he finds your carelessness has wrecked the power and telephone lines it will be you facing the bullets. Get out. Drive to Amiens where you can phone Berlin with the latest report. Speak to my nephew, Colonel Roth, at Gestapo headquarters.’
Corporal Rudolf scuttled away and left Aimee and Brigit alone with the major. The girl looked sly. ‘Now the old man has gone we can tell the major our secret can’t we, Maman?’
Aimee threw her hands in the air. ‘I suppose so, child. Strauss, the terror of the Gestapo, can be safely told…’
‘Told what?’ the man breathed.
Aimee leaned forward. ‘I am a German spy. The SOE offered me the chance to join them because I was born in France and live in England.’
‘So why would you work for Germany?’ the major asked.
‘Because my husband is German,’ Aimee said simply.
‘You are just saying that,’ Major Strauss said, frowning.
Aimee gave a one-shouldered shrug. ‘No. It is too easy for you to check. Berlin will have a list of all the Germans in Britain who are interned in their prison camps. You will find the name Marius Furst on the list of Germans in the camp at Castle Bromwich in the English Midlands.’
‘I can’t check. You’ve wrecked the phone lines.’
‘Wait a moment,’ Aimee said. She stepped outside the door and came back with a heavy book bound in dark red leather. She placed it on the Major’s desk. ‘This is the church record of births, marriages and deaths. Look at 20 April 1923.’
The Gestapo commander opened it and turned the pages. ‘1923,’ he muttered and ran his finger down the columns. ‘20 April – Hitler’s birthday… ah, here we are.’ He read it aloud. ‘Aimee Fletcher of Bray married Doctor Marius Furst of Germany?’
‘Yes. But the people of Bray drove us out. They drove my poor husband away when he came here to help the sick. They drove me out of my own home. That’s why I hate them. That’s why I want to see France defeated. We went to England where we could spy if a war came along, and it has.’
The major nodded slowly. ‘I see.’ He looked up, troubled. ‘But Madame Furst,’ he said. ‘You wrecked a trainload of tanks and an engine shed and a tyre factory, yet you claim to be a German spy?’
‘The tanks were old models going to a scrapyard,’ Brigit said.
‘The trains were French puffers that will be replaced by powerful German ones,’ Aimee put in.
‘And the tyre factory was producing third-rate rubbish that wasn’t fit to be seen on our fine German Mercedes cars,’ Brigit finished.
‘And the power lines?’ Major Strauss said.
‘One telegraph pole that you’ll have back up in a couple of hours,’ Aimee cried. ‘But when the traitors in Bray see those actions they will flock to join the Resistance. That way you can round them up and arrest them. Strauss, the terror of the Gestapo, will have his greatest triumph.’
The major sat back in his chair and enjoyed the moment. ‘And how do I… round them up?’ he asked.
‘Camille Olivier, Hugo Philippe and Bastien Robert will be in Bray churchyard tomorrow night at ten o’clock. I have arranged it. There will be others there with them. I don’t have all of their names. But you could catch a dozen fish with one net,’ Brigit promised. ‘I’m afraid you will have to trust me until then… If the traitors see I’ve been arrested they will never crawl out from under their evil stones ever again. You will have to let me go right now.’
‘It may be true that your German husband is interned in England as you say. My colonel in Berlin told me the Gestapo have planted a secret agent in Bray to betray any Resistance workers. There is just one thing that my nephew said that puzzled me.’ The man rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward. ‘The name the colonel gave me wasn’t Aimee Furst.’
Aimee had been expecting that. ‘Of course not. Aimee Furst is my real name. I gave it to you, so you could check I was telling the truth about Marius.’
‘So what name have you been using?’ the major asked.
And Brigit gave him the name of the Resistance worker who had appeared in the churchyard at nine thirty that evening.
The major b
eamed. ‘Yes. That is the name my nephew gave me. Make sure the French rebels are all in the churchyard tomorrow at ten…’ He stopped suddenly as he remembered. The man’s mouth fell open and he stumbled over his words. ‘But Colonel Roth said General… General Fischer… he’s coming to Bray tomorrow. Coming here. Do you see what this means? He will be there to see my greatest triumph. He can watch as I round up the whole nest of vipers. Oh, my dream… my wildest dream come true. Madame Furst – and Brigit, of course – thank you, thank you.’
Brigit and her mother looked at one another. ‘Our pleasure, I’m sure,’ Brigit said. Aimee rose from the chair. ‘We’ll bid you goodnight then, Major Strauss. Sleep well. Tomorrow at this time your life will be changed forever.’
‘Forever,’ he breathed.
Chapter Forty
‘I’ll kill the evil turncoat’
Monday, 9 June 1941: Bray-on-Somme
Brigit slept well and woke long after the farmhouse cockerel had greeted the day. She swallowed her breakfast eggs too quickly in her excitement. By this time tomorrow she’d be waking in England… or in a Gestapo cell.
Aimee went off to the barn to collect the radio and take it to a place far away from the farmhouse. If the Germans could track the signal back to the farm, then Colette would be in danger. She walked into the hills above Bray where she had walked as a girl. She passed the drovers’ road where she had led a young German soldier to safety at the end of the last war. The man who had returned and married her.
She stopped and sent a message to London about what had been happening. She switched off the radio after three minutes in case the trackers had spotted her. She knew it was unlikely.
She moved five kilometres further east to where some of the fiercest fighting of the last war had taken place by the River Somme. The shattered, shell-sunken, trench-torn fields and woods had repaired themselves well and the land looked rich and green. Far too rich to allow the invaders to steal it.
Aimee sent her second message, making final plans for that evening’s flight home. ‘A plane with room for a third passenger,’ she finished. She closed the suitcase that held the radio and walked steadily back to the farm.