The Little Parachute

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘Mademoiselle Moncontre, I believe,’ said Ledieu. ‘At last we meet again and these,’ he indicated the others, ‘you already know.’

  She felt her back stiffen, her shoulders become squared. The proud de Fleury chin her father had prided himself so much in would be jutting defiantly.

  When her voice came, she heard its calmness and knew Papa would have been proud of that too. ‘Where is Châlus?’

  ‘The “priest”,’ said Allard. ‘Not with us, mademoiselle. Gone overland, I think, to Bois Carré, to the slaughter of so many by the Sturmbannführer Kraus.’

  Word of what must have been going on had reached them. They would kill her. The one called Jean-Pierre had given his revolver to the sous-préfet Allard. Ledieu, the mayor, still held the Luger Hans had brought her. ‘Might I have a few moments before the cross?’ she asked, sensing they wouldn’t kill her here in the church and that they would probably first want to question her.

  Someone had lighted a candle. She couldn’t see his face for he held the little taper well before himself and didn’t lift his head to hers.

  It was Ledieu who said, ‘There is, alas, no time for prayers, but did you give Father Nicolas any, or Véronique, or her brother or mother?’

  ‘Honoré, be quiet,’ said Allard. ‘Let her confess before her God. The longer the confession, the longer she remains alive. Everything you know about this Châlus, mademoiselle. Everything.’

  Was Châlus their only hope? wondered Marie-Hélène. ‘And the Sturmbannführer Kraus?’ she asked. ‘Shall I tell you about him?’

  ‘Of course.’

  The tunnel was long and very dark, and when they entered it, the dogs made little sound but came on swiftly. The girl, Yvette, fired the pistol once, then twice. Stabs of flame caused the eyes to blink, but still the dogs came on, the whisper of their paws picking up where the echo of the shots left off.

  Angélique pulled Martin more tightly against herself. The girl cried out in anguish and fired twice more, this time pointing the gun at the floor in front of them so that the bullets ricocheted. A dog was hit and yelped—whined terribly and set up a racket the others ignored as they raced on through the darkness.

  She fired repeatedly at the floor, the bullets pinging off the walls and careering along the tunnel. There was a sharp yelp, another and another, she emptying the gun and giving a cry that was torn from her.

  Over and over she rolled, shrieking—filling the tunnel with the sounds of her. Angélique pushed Martin to the floor and tried to cover him. ‘MY HANDS!’ she shrieked. ‘MY FACE, MY NECK!’ Skin was torn. Blood rushed out. Infuriated, the dogs raced in, biting, tearing, tugging until …

  They backed off. Growling from deep inside, they waited, panting as torchlight filled the tunnel and the sound of hobnailed boots came to rest.

  ‘Ach, mein Gott, will you look at that,’ swore one of the men. ‘Heini, komm mal her, ja? Guter Hund. Let go of her now.’

  The dog released the girl who gave a sigh.

  Terrified—cradling her left hand and panicking at thoughts of a torn face, a missing ear, a scalp that had lost its hair—Angélique obeyed and didn’t resist when told to sit up.

  ‘Ahh …’ She gasped and found herself worrying about Martin. Martin mustn’t look.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he managed, but it wasn’t. Yvette Rougement’s throat had been ripped open. Her face, neck, hair and hands—her arms, breasts and thighs were covered in blood that glistened under torchlight even as it ran.

  With a grunt, one of the men grabbed the girl by a wrist and dragged her back along the tunnel and finally into the rain to leave her lying faceup in the mud. Her clothes had been torn to shreds, blood draining rapidly to mingle with the water. ‘Yvette … Yvette,’ sobbed Angélique. ‘We didn’t even know your real name.’

  ‘RUHE!’ shrieked one of the men.

  Slammed hard in the centre of her back with the butt of a rifle, startled by the blow, Angélique panicked as she pitched forward to hit the ground hard. Martin tried to save her. Martin shrieked as he kicked and swung at them, and when he fell on top of her, his body was limp and she felt his saliva draining down her cheek, hot against the coolness of the rain.

  ‘Châlus … Raymond Châlus,’ swore Kraus, sucking in a breath through clenched teeth as he stood over the terrorist. ‘How does it feel now to have had one of those old Lebels pointed at an SS officer but with a bullet that fails to fire?’

  The cord had been cut and, when yanked, it had come freely. No explosion. No mustard gas.

  Châlus had then jammed the gun against the back of Kraus’s head and had pulled the trigger. ‘He can’t answer you,’ said Lautenschläger, breathing in deeply. ‘You’ve broken his teeth and his jaw, his nose also. He doesn’t look well, Sturmbannführer. I doubt very much if you will ever get anything from him.’

  ‘These people do it all the time. He’s only faking. AUFSTEHEN!’ he shrieked at Châlus.

  The swollen eyes tried to look up into the torchlight and the rain. The battered lips fought to move. Savagely Kraus kicked the bastard in the ribs and then in the groin. Doubled up in pain, Châlus choked and vomited blood.

  ‘Shoot him. Here, let me do it if you won’t,’ said Lautenschläger.

  ‘He’s fine. He’s only faking. GET UP!’ shrieked Kraus.

  Châlus rolled over and grabbed him round the ankles. Taken by surprise, Kraus toppled backwards. The terrorist scrambled on top of him and sank his teeth into an ear. Kraus shrieked and fought back.

  Rolling over and over in the mud, the two were finally pulled apart. Kraus gripped his ear and when he took his hand away, it was covered with blood. ‘BASTARD!’ he screamed.

  They held Châlus. The Sturmbannführer beat him with a rifle and when finally released, the terrorist collapsed. ‘There, Colonel. Now do you believe me?’

  Kraus was breathing heavily. Blood streamed down the left side of his neck from an ear that had been savagely torn. He clamped a handkerchief to the ear but removed this several times to see if the wound had been staunched. ‘Châlus will pay for this!’

  The others came down from the woods, dragging the boy and his mother. Kraus found his pistol. Lautenschläger cautioned patience. ‘Some photographs perhaps,’ he said. ‘For Berlin.’

  ‘Very well. Some photographs. And when we have the others and the parachutist, they will all be left hanging by the neck from the belfry of the Kommandantur.’

  One of the men mentioned the dead girl. Kraus insisted she be thrown into one of the lorries. ‘We will leave her outside the Kommandantur and punish anyone who attempts to cover or remove her body. Bloated, her corpse will be a constant reminder to them.’

  As it will be to ourselves, thought Lautenschläger ruefully and asked himself, Why is it that men like Kraus always seem to succeed?

  He pitied Châlus and the Bellecour woman. He wondered what would happen to the boy and if it would be possible to save him.

  Martin can’t be blamed for this, he told himself. It really isn’t his war. But it was, of course, and therefore he could not be saved.

  Water was pooled on the floor of the ruined Church of Saint-Vulfran. Marie-Hélène listened to the pitter-patter of droplets through the pitch-darkness that, with the seven of them, was all around her.

  They were going to kill her. They were each, in his own way, violently hostile towards her. Some, like Jean-Pierre, wanted to play with her emotions, then to beat her, to punish her harshly before killing her.

  Others like Honoré Ledieu, even as they despised her, despised themselves for having to do this in a church. They would have preferred the privacy of the ruins along one of the canals, but that had not been possible. Not now, and so they felt very uncomfortable. Also they were ex-soldiers and to them the killing of a defenceless woman, even if an infiltrator, struck hard at the conscience.

  All w
ere afraid but knew for sure only that she could not yet have given their names to Kraus who knew only that the mayor was involved.

  She hadn’t told them about Hans having their names, had kept that little secret from them, though the sous-préfet Allard suspected she was hiding something. And, yes, Hans would take care of them but had he been sent to Berlin? Had he been stopped on the road home to Paris and simply taken to the aerodrome? He would have had to give his notebook to someone else or it would have been taken from him.

  In any case, these men were doomed but did not yet know it fully. But were they thinking Châlus might offer escape for Ledieu and his family? Were they thinking, as they shared their cigarettes, giving none to herself, that perhaps the others could safely lie low and go about their daily lives once she had been dealt with? The fools.

  Rubble had been cleared so that a narrow passage led through to the nave and under where the vault of its roof had collapsed. Ledieu went first; Allard followed closely behind her so that there would be no chance of escape. The rain struck her hard and she bowed her head but when they reached what must be the transept, the rain suddenly ceased.

  There would be less rubble here, for the roof above must still be intact. Perhaps a path had been cleared to the south and north doors, the pews ending well before the steps up into the chancel.

  Once out in the square, she could make a dash for the Kommandantur. It was very close and there was nothing between it and the church but emptiness.

  Allard felt her hesitate and stabbed the muzzle of his revolver between her shoulders. ‘Go on, then. Make a run for it. Give me the excuse to finish you off before we have to listen to your prayers.’

  ‘Théodore, that’s enough!’ hissed Ledieu nervously. ‘Switch on the torch. It will be better.’

  No torch came on. Uncertainly she felt for the first of the steps only to stumble, to cry out and grab for the mayor.

  The rain was cold and she was drenched to the skin, and as she lay there in the torchlight looking up at them in terror, they all looked down on her. Did they want to kick her, to break her ribs, to hear her cry for mercy?

  The beam of that blue, cloth-shuttered thing in the sous-préfet’s fist went out. Salaud, she wanted to scream at him.

  ‘Kneel,’ said Ledieu. ‘Prepare yourself.’

  Ah no … ‘But … but we haven’t yet reached the altar?’

  ‘For you, a little distance is necessary,’ he sighed and she knew then that there must be both a sacristy and a chapel near the altar and that the doors from each of them would offer escape if only she could reach one of them. If only …

  The blue of the torchlight found her again. As she knelt and hastily made the sign of the cross, she began to cry. The dark brown hair whose plainness had fooled so many, clung to her cheeks and brow and neck. The left arm of her shirt-blouse was torn. Three buttons were now missing from its front but either she had no time for modesty or was unconscious of her state. Or perhaps she had deliberately ripped the blouse open.

  There were bruises, cuts and scrapes, and yes, thought Ledieu sadly, she did look very afraid and vulnerable. A pretty girl who, like so many others, had willingly given herself to the enemy.

  But unlike those others, this one had done far more than the unforgivable.

  Her voice came faintly as she said the Lord’s Prayer in Latin but soon choked on her words and vomited and they had to hold her head down.

  ‘Adveniat regnum tuum,’ prompted someone—had it been the dentist, their weakest link? she wondered. Was he to her left?—yes, yes, he was. And from there, the aisle to the altar would be clear.

  Prodded by Allard’s revolver, she blurted, ‘Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in … in caelo, et in terra.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said one of the others—the silent one, the foreman from the brewery. He was standing next to the sous-préfet and all but behind her but where were the others? Was there still so much rubble on the floor they couldn’t get closer?

  ‘They’ve gone to guard the exits,’ breathed Allard. ‘Try any of them if you wish.’

  The confessions began. Quickly she told them why Raymond Châlus had come to Abbeville to put an end to her. ‘Châlus will try to save his son and Angélique Bellecour,’ she grated, displaying a little of her former toughness. ‘The Sturmbannführer Kraus is well aware of this and will attempt to use them to trap him, so you must first get rid of Kraus if you are to survive.’

  This one was really something, felt Allard, but had she the means with which to do just such a thing?

  ‘Berlin are promoting Kraus,’ she offered, her hands still tightly clasped in prayer, her back straight, head bowed, every muscle in her ready to spring. ‘He’s to take over security for all of the Retaliatory Weapon One sites.’

  You tease, sighed Allard. You’re so deceitful, it’s really quite a marvel, but me, I am now wondering exactly what you are contemplating.

  ‘Please tell us about those sites,’ said Ledieu. He was between her and the wall on which there was a statue of the Virgin. He still had the Luger Hans had given her. The pale blue light from the sous-préfet’s torch left the mayor largely in darkness but gave to the plaster Virgin an opalescent hue.

  ‘The Nazis are very close about those sites,’ she said and left it at that.

  ‘Part your lips a little more, mademoiselle. Give us everything,’ hissed the cylinder-spinner, Jean-Pierre, who had returned for some reason.

  ‘I think there are to be a hundred of such sites in the north and all within range of England. Flying bombs, messieurs. Each site is first to be aimed at London.’

  ‘When?’ demanded the brewery foreman who had moved a little more to her left so as to block any attempt past the dentist.

  ‘The late autumn perhaps. Who knows? But all the sites will fire on London at once—twenty … thirty … Ah, mon Dieu, mes amis, maybe forty flying bombs from each of them in one continuous barrage and each bomb of about a thousand kilos of high explosive.’

  Ledieu let a breath escape and she thought, Now was her chance. Now she must leap at him—yes, him!

  The muzzle of that revolver pushed its way among the hairs that were plastered to the back of her neck.

  ‘The Sturmbannführer Kraus,’ said someone, a reminder, but had they, too, come back from blocking an exit?

  Allard nudged her head with that thing. Calming herself, she said, ‘Berlin expect Kraus to make an example of Abbeville and yourselves.’

  ‘He wants a parachutist that doesn’t exist,’ snorted Jean-Pierre.

  ‘He wants Châlus, idiot! and the girl who came with him from Paris.’

  ‘The novice,’ muttered Ledieu, his mind racing perhaps over possible avenues of escape for him and his family.

  ‘He will stop at nothing,’ she insisted, and turning around left off her prayers to look desperately up at them. ‘Please,’ she begged. ‘Let me join you. Only I can help you escape. I’ll do it, yes, and then … then you can kill me.’

  Questioningly Ledieu glanced at Allard and she saw that one attempt to nod all but imperceptibly. Her lips began to quiver, but she couldn’t seem to stop them and began to recite the Hail Mary.

  He lifted the Luger and pointed it at her head, the muzzle touching her right temple causing her to cry out inwardly, Hans … but Kraus was her only hope.

  ‘Messieurs, I know where there is a Schmeisser and two hundred rounds, another thirty for that Luger you’re about to use.’

  ‘Ah merde, where?’ bleated Ledieu.

  Allard was impressed.

  ‘In the place where I hid them. You see, messieurs, my lover, the Standartenführer Dirksen, is to be recalled to Berlin and replaced by the Sturmbannführer Kraus but this my lover most certainly doesn’t want.’

  She shrugged. She had about her the insolence of an alley cat in heat and would fling herself at any of them in order
to get what she wanted. ‘Go on,’ said Allard. ‘Empty your little can of worms.’

  ‘So that you can go fishing? Yes … yes, please allow me to continue. But first, I must stand, I think. My knees. I haven’t been on them like this for such a long, long time, they ache.’

  ‘Then let them ache a little longer,’ said the foreman, wanting to strangle her perhaps.

  ‘Very well, my lips give only silence,’ she said tartly. ‘You’ve had your opportunity. The one solution to all your little problems is to do exactly what my lover wanted but you … you thirst only for revenge, yet are too ashamed of what you are doing here to conduct me to the altar.’

  ‘Just tell us, mademoiselle,’ said Ledieu.

  They waited. They asked if she had given their names to this lover of hers and she rejoiced in their asking, was filled with hope. ‘How could I have? He’s forbidden to leave Paris. Oh for sure, maybe he has sent me a telex saying he has been recalled to Berlin earlier than he thought, maybe he has asked if I’ve done what he most wanted.’

  They were all so nervous. ‘I was to have killed Kraus for him and my lover knew I would, but you see, messieurs, I was to have made it look like a Résistance killing.’

  A bloodbath would have followed but there had already been one. Was an example then not needed for all those who remained? A Résistance example?

  ‘Killing Kraus could be my little gift to you,’ she said.

  ‘But not in return for your life,’ said someone.

  ‘Then let him get his hands on monsieur le maire, eh? That is all he needs, and believe me, Monsieur Ledieu, no matter how much you think it impossible for him to pry the names of these others from your lips, such things they are easy. He’s a natural. A sadist. Instinctively he knows each person’s weakest point. A wife, a son, a daughter, and all the while you are watching what is happening to them, a part of you is begging you to betray your friends.’

  Someone made a move to intervene. ‘She can’t be trusted, and you know this,’ said the foreman. ‘The slut is just causing dissension among us. Kill her now and let’s be done with it!’