by Pirate Irwin
However, both of them had seemed so at ease with each other it felt like they had been a couple for much longer than a few weeks dating back to two years before.
Still presented with what sounded like an ultimatum by Morillon he welcomed the opportunity to make his feelings clear.
“Well I would be only delighted to make a new start. I’ve lost more members of my family than I would wish, my wife and my daughter and now my father murdered, my sister who I don’t care for is in prison, two have been guillotined and my two brothers I have yet to hear from,” said Lafarge, who felt tears welling up as the reality dawned on him of the impact the war had had on his once close family.
“I cannot think of anything better than to start afresh with a healthy again Pierre, Aimee and Bernard.
“Not too many people will be so lucky to have such an opportunity after this dark and ignoble period where whole families have been wiped from the earth.
“Yes I am all for trying. We will need to keep a close eye on Pierre, but not too heavy as I have faith in your analysis Doctor and it is up to me and Aimee to set an example and to be good parents to both boys in equal measure. Goodness knows they have both been through hell, little Bernard hopefully will not recall any of his experience.”
Lafarge suddenly stopped and looked at Aimee, realising he had been speaking as if he was answering on both their behalves.
“Sorry Aimee I’ve been rambling away without even consulting you or asking what you think. Are you prepared to believe Doctor Morillon and allow Pierre to live with us as a family? You are after all not a total stranger to him for he would have met you when you taught Isabella piano in Nice,” said Lafarge.
Aimee smiled sympathetically at Lafarge. He was desperate for her to say yes because all of a sudden the weight of living on his own had finally surfaced. She sensed this he could tell, but would it be enough to coax her into agreeing to do so.
“I understand Gaston why you are so keen to begin again,” she said lighting her cigarette and taking a sip from her glass.
“I am delighted that you have agreed to accompany me to Cologne, that is a big step forward and you accepting Bernard is also a major plus. However, whilst there is no reason to question Dr Morillon’s assessment of Pierre, I would like to be more circumspect and allow myself time to get to know him.
“I don’t think by plunging him into a happy family scenario will help. I think both he and I require time to build a relationship and for me to be able to feel relaxed about having him around.
“I apologise if this is hurtful but you have to understand my feelings. It was pretty hard to come here today having heard the story. I am encouraged by what you say Doctor but I am not willing yet to allow myself and Bernard be left alone with Pierre in case he has been fooling you and there is a darker side to him.
“Lord knows Gaston with your family you don’t know what is coming round the corner,” she said sadly.
Lafarge felt deflated and Morillon looked embarrassed, his duties did not involve being a psychiatrist to adults, even if one was the father of a patient.
Morillon cleared his throat, Lafarge taking that to be a polite way of let’s move on or perhaps it is best we finish up and you conduct the rest of the discussion elsewhere. He could hardly blame him.
“Listen if it helps Pierre can stay here till you return from Germany and settle down,” said Morillon.
“We cannot keep him indefinitely as we are short of rooms for the amount of children who need really good care. But I will keep him here till I’m certain he will get the attention he deserves.
“So I leave it to you as a pair of adults to resolve the situation. I would be so bold to say Chief Inspector that your first responsibility is to your son,” he added firmly.
Lafarge and Aimee walked out of Morillon’s office in silence, the Chief Inspector felt let down by Aimee’s refusal to begin afresh because of Pierre. He wished he hadn’t told her but then he loved her so much he could hardly have hidden such a thing and placed both she and Bernard at risk.
He already bore enough guilt from the death of Berenice and he wouldn’t have been able to relax one second if he had simply removed Pierre from the hospital and integrated him into the family.
Morillon was right his first responsibility was to Pierre and to giving him a solid base. Aimee wouldn’t be going far. She felt the same way about him as he did her he was sure of that. They could talk about that on their drive to Cologne and back.
He had one more card up his sleeve which he was prepared to deal and that was cutting ties permanently with the police force. If that was what it took to ensure Aimee stayed with him then he would do it, for that way he could keep a permanent eye on Pierre.
This last investigation had worn him out, the previous two had been stressful enough and the pitiful pay packet made it even less rewarding.
In any case he didn’t need the money. He had succeeded through his black marketer in selling some of the jewels he had sequestered from the hiding place where the late Nazi starlet Marguerite Suchet had secreted them at her parents farm in the Lot.
He wasn’t going to shout it from the rooftops but for him crime did pay.
HISTORICAL NOTE
This story is a work of fiction based on historical events. The mutinies in 1917 rocked the French Army, the hard-pressed and exhausted ‘poilus’ had had enough of their generals setting them unachievable targets which cost thousands of lives. The Nivelle Offensive was one too many and the soldiers mutinied, spreading like wildfire across the front.
Petain – who almost alone of the generals inspired confidence and reverence because of his command at the battle of Verdun – was brought in to restore morale and order. He set about it displaying good judgment, diplomacy and a common touch which largely had deserted the elderly man who assumed power decades later.
He spoke to the men, he gave them much needed leave and although over 500 were sentenced to death only 10% of the executions were carried out.
I have no idea whether any of the relations or descendants of those executed took revenge on those in their respective firing squads later.
Fast forwarding to the end of World War II and the fall of Berlin it did indeed ironically fall upon a hotch potch of Scandinavians and French from their respective SS Divisions, Viking and Charlemagne, to defend the last remnants of the ‘Great Empire’ Hitler and his cohorts had created through their militarism. Ironic because it at the same time exposed the lie of the German race being the superior Aryan ideal as they had to rely on foreign troops to buy those who still wished to flee some time.
Bormann’s end did come in Berlin – despite many fanciful sightings of ‘Hitler’s shadow’ down the years – not at the receiving end of a French SS soldier’s gun but by a tank shell wounding him and then fearing capture he bit down on his cyanide capsule just as his SS doctor companion Stumpfegger did – Axmann survived.
Several Frenchmen were indeed awarded the Iron Cross, the characters of Vandamme and Rochedebois are an amalgam of several of the real characters who fought for the Charlemagne Division, few of whom faced a firing squad after returning to France, although several did serve prison terms. The escape from a Soviet Army hospital did take place as is illustrated in the historical character section.
Amazingly among the carnage and nihilism of Ravensbruck Concentration Camp some of the prisoners did have babies and a few incredibly survived.
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS
Rene Bousquet (May 11 1909 – June 8 1993)
He was just 20 years old when he was awarded the Legion d’Honneur for heroism as he and a friend, the son of a biscuit magnate, went out in canoes and saved many people from the floods that ravaged the south west of France in 1930, although it had a sad post script as his friend died in the process. A qualified lawyer he rose fast thanks to the patronage of the powerful Sarraut brothers, Albert and Maurice, the former being Prime Minister on two occasions. Despite being a Socialist he didn’t have
any trouble in transferring allegiance to Vichy and in 1941 was appointed prefect of the Marne Department the youngest ever at 32. He did help some acquaintances to escape but when he was named by another mentor and fellow Socialist Pierre Laval as Police Minister he shoved any principles aside and ditched his moral scruples to aid the Nazis in their sweeping up of the Jews. Later he would plead he protected French Jews, sadly it came at the price of enthusiastic work by his uniformed gendarmes and special brigades, the latter fanatical anti-semites almost to a man, in pursuing foreign Jews and their children. Even the Nazis were shocked by the zealousness in including children in the sweeps. His days in power came to an abrupt end when Maurice Sarraut was murdered by Darnand’s Milice and his protestations about this fell on stony ground both with Petain and the Nazis who had him removed and replaced by Darnand in December 1943. However many would wonder at his vehement denunciation of Sarraut’s murder when he had done nothing of the sort over the orders to round up the Jews. He was sent to Sigmaringen with the rest of the Vichy hierarchy. He returned and had the good fortune to be tried right at the end when there was a stronger desire to move on and forget the dark chapter. He wasn’t even tried over the round-ups of the Jews for which he would have been given the death penalty. Despite a slap on the wrists he forged strong relationships with the likes of Francois Mitterand after the war and backed him in his politcal ambitions, taking great pleasure at his opposing de Gaulle at the presidential election. Enjoyed a successful business career but then the indefatigable Klarsfelds, Serge and Beate, came after him again and his powerful friends largely disappeared. However, justice was not to be served as an attention seeker somehow gained access to his apartment block in 1993 and shot him to death. Bousquet is the man of whom Mitterand observed to a journalist he was lunching with one day and the latter was horrified when he greeted Bousquet warmly: “There is no black and white, there is only grey.”
Joseph Darnand (March 19 1897 – October 10 1945)
Fought in World War I and he rose from the ranks to end it as a warrant officer. Started up his own business in between the wars but also got heavily involved in the far right and became a member of what was essentially a terrorist organization the Cagoulards. He was decorated for bravery during the fighting in 1940. From there it was all downhill, a natural disciple of Vichy he created the vicious French militia ‘milice’. They perpetrated some horrific massacres and crimes against their own people. Despite this far right sympathy he did try on several occasions to cross over to the Resistance as he despised the Germans. However, he ended the war donning Nazi uniform as a Waffen SS officer. Unlike Petain and some others from the Vichy Government he didn’t return of his own volition and was arrested in northern Italy. Tried on October 3 he was executed a week later, although I have invented the histrionics he put on for dramatic pruposes for the book. He may have had odious traits but cowardice wasn’t one of them.
Pierre Laval (June 28 1883 – October 15 1945)
Avidly socialist, at least till the latter days of his political career, he was Prime Minister of France twice during the 1930’s and was even Time Magazine’s person of the year in 1931. However, he plunged from those highs to unimaginable depths in his enthusiastic embracing of the Nazis and collaboration with them, even wishing for a German victory, a phrase that above all would condemn him at the end of hostilities. Dismissed by Petain, the marshal was humiliatingly ordered by the Germans to reinstall him as his Prime Minister. Laval, who was rarely seen without a cigarette and shuffling along with his gold-topped cane, combined with Bousquet to enforce the measures against the Jews. Tried vainly to get Spain to grant him asylum, he took a plane there after others returned to France from Sigmaringen. He was injured when the plane crashed but not even that saved him from being returned to France. He was tried and executed in double quick time shortly after Darnand. Bousquet remained loyal to his former patron spending the last night of his life with him. He tried to cheat the firing squad by swallowing poison but he was revived and once deemed fit enough a few hours later to be executed they carried it out…one could say with Germanic like punctuality and efficiency.
Marshal Philippe Petain (April 24 1856 – July 23 1951)
The hero of Verdun and relatively compassionate commander when it came to dealing with the mutineers in 1917, his behaviour in World War II was directly the opposite. His defenders claim he did it in the best interests of his country, and others that he was ageing and not in command of his senses. However, there is plenty of evidence to contradict the senility defence. He adopted the yellow star for the Jews to wear even before the Germans did, and he pushed through the anti-Jewish laws, without too much lobbying either from the Germans nor the likes of Laval and his cronies. Even personal letters to him from former associates who were Jewish and had been rounded up did not receive special treatment; their pleas going unanswered. However, he still commanded respect and love from the people as a final tour of what remained of France under Vichy rule showed days before he was sent into exile by the Germans. He returned voluntarily, and earned some rare praise from de Gaulle, at the end of hostilities and was tried. He steadfastly refused to co-operate with the court disputing their legality to try him. He was initially condemned to death with the recommendation that it be commuted to life imprisonment which de Gaulle agreed to. He retained the title of Marshal, but little else, and served out his sentence on the Ile d’Yeu off the Atlantic coast although there were regular calls from world leaders for him to be released. Ironically given his refusal to grant Laval asylum Spain’s Fascist dictator General Franco offered to take Petain. However, despite seriously declining mental and physical health – he had hallucinations amongst other things of naked women, he was known for the twinkle in his eye during his life for the fairer sex, dancing round his room -- he remained incarcerated till he died in 1951. He is buried on the island.
Lucien Pinault
Pinault survived the cull of policemen and detectives post Liberation, despite having served in the force during the Occupation. He was appointed commissaire in place of the legendary detective Georges Massu, who had led the investigation into the mass murderer Dr Petiot, but fell victim to the febrile times and was imprisoned although he was to be cleared later on of any collaboration or links to the worst offences of the force. Pinault took the glory as Petiot was eventually uncovered, working as an intelligence officer under an assumed name. It was also under his watch that notorious gangster and collaborator Pierrot Le Fou (Peter the Crazy) was brought to book albeit briefly. However, his star was to wane over the protracted and sinister affair concerning the murder of collaborationist publisher Robert Denoel.
Christian de la Maziere (August 22 1922 – February 15 2006)
Joined the Charlemagne Division shortly before the Liberation of Paris which was rather curious timing given the tide of war was clearly against the Nazis. He was eventually captured by the Poles – he had been awarded the Iron Cross like Vandamme to go with his Croix de Guerre -- and made it back to France where he was jailed for five years despite his best efforts to convince people he’d been part of the STO programme (forced labour). Unlike Rochedebois his post war record was blemish free and started a public relations company based round film stars, which led to liaisons with Juliette Greco and Brigitte Bardot amongst others. Played a striking real life role in the superb documentary on the Occupation Marcel Ophuls ‘Le Chagrin et Le Pitie’ where he is brutally honest about the fighting on the Eastern Front and his total disillusionment with the Germans – referring to them as Les Schleus and Hitler as ‘Le Grand Jules’ and subsequently with his actions and indeed Petain, who refuses to see him and his fellow travelers when they roll up to Sigmaringen demanding an audience. He later served as an advisor to the president of Togo. Rochedebois is largely based round him.
Francois Barazer de Lannurien (July 22 1926 – September 21 2006)
Like de la Maziere he fought in the Charlemagne Division, and was only a teenager. He was also awarded
the Iron Cross. It is largely his experiences in fighting his way out of Berlin in the group comprising Bormann that I have drawn on even down to being wounded and taken to a Soviet hospital which he escaped from. He remained free till 1948 when he was finally arrested and tried as a minor as he had been so young when he fought for the Nazis. He was condemned to a year in jail for his sins and not executed as he is in the book. Enjoyed a successful, and like de la Maziere, colorful life after the war. From entrepreneur to film producer to racehorse owner and breeder and like his comrade-in-arms worked in Togo. Appropriately enough he died in the same year as de la Maziere. They were as inseparable in death as they were in life.
THE END