Single to Paris

by Single to Paris (retail) (epub)

  ‘So that’s fine, isn’t it? Thank you… Oh, Nico, this any use to you?’

  The clasp-knife. He was delighted, and she was glad to have found a good home for it.

  * * *

  Adée had made a fish pie for supper and Rosie had hers early, guessing it wouldn’t last long. The Dog was about half full by then, some of them people she’d seen there before – that first night, when they’d been off to some meeting and Dénault hadn’t shown up. She hadn’t known any of their names then – only Adée had trusted her at first sight – but she had several of them tagged now. Sougy, Dehais, Clavel, Laplanche, Godin. None of them seemed to know what Leblanc was up to, only that he had something going on. Adée had speculated, ‘Chasing girls, I dare say. You know schoolmasters.’

  He did have a wife, apparently – presumably the woman Rosie had spoken to. Adée had said, ‘We don’t hear much about her – nor about his children, but there are some. He’s a man keeps himself to himself, you know?’ Even she perhaps didn’t know about the Milice armoury: and there was no reason she should have. A question in Rosie’s mind was whether he, Leblanc, would be taking part in the operation; having stressed the value of the other man’s military training, and having none himself – as far as she knew. Perhaps he’d have felt that as group leader he had some obligation to go along.

  After supper she borrowed a pack of cards from Adée and played patience. Other card games were in progress, and a noisy game of dominoes. She wasn’t drinking anything, only waiting for time to pass, customers to push off. As it was, they were risking the penalties of infringing curfew. So was she, for that matter – but with only a few yards to go – and the police on strike, which was why they were all ignoring it, she supposed… She didn’t want to go to the house before Adée packed up; she was physically tired but guessed that if she turned in early and was woken after only an hour or so she mightn’t sleep again.

  Starting another game. The air was heavy with smoke under the low, stained ceiling, and it was very noisy; when from time to time Nico joined her they had to shout in each other’s ears. The domino players were a major source of it, roaring like bulls – especially the very large one, Clavel, who was like that even before he’d had anything to drink. Nico was leaning that way now, to see what was happening with the dominoes, the game by the sound of it approaching climax. Rosie in contrast putting her cards down swiftly and silently, anticipating that this time it would come out; but still not exactly concentrating on it. A depressing thought at about this time was that although in the three days she’d been here she’d actually covered quite a lot of ground, it was a fact that one week ago from tonight had been her first night at Fawley Court, and even then Rouquet and Léonie must have been in Gestapo, SD or Bonny-Lafont custody for several days.

  Ten days now at least, therefore.

  The patience game had stalled. Might force another ‘coffee’ down, she thought. And if any of these characters thought of offering her a cigarette – since she didn’t have any of her own…

  The street door exploded inwards. Noise, games and jollity all shock-blasted into silence: lamp-lit apparitions through the haze were uniformed Boches crowding in. Not in fact all that many; it had only seemed, in that first second… They were SS, anyway. Three of them – no, four. And a civilian – bulky man in a hat and coat – a Frenchman, shouting for silence, which there had been but only momentarily, hadn’t lasted. That one had heeled the door shut behind him and the SS – with Schmeissers – had spread themselves across that end of the room, one of them pushing Adée away from her stove. There’d been shouts and protests, including angry shrieks from her, amounting in aggregate to a secondary explosion, a lot of them on their feet and the bench on the far side of the other table crashing over; the SS simply watching, waiting, only their guns’ barrels moving, covering everyone – waiting for any real trouble.

  Rosie meanwhile guessing they’d come for her: courtesy of Georges and/or Patrice.

  Going quiet again: mutters and growls replacing shouts. Eyes on the levelled Schmeissers too. They’d got that bench the right way up again, but on that side of the room were mostly still on their feet: looking if not at the guns at the Frenchman who with his hat tilted back and both hands in his coat pockets was just standing, looking around. While he was there in front of them the SS couldn’t easily have opened fire; so with luck it was not to be a massacre of suspected résistants. Clavel – the half-drunk man-mountain – was still poised like a statue, inclined across the table with one great paw still raised, a domino piece between finger and thumb and his mouth open as if checked suddenly in full bellow. As he would have been: it was only seconds since the irruption. An oil-lamp on the table beside him was smoking darkly; becoming aware of it, he’d grimaced and pulled back, was subsiding slowly on to the bench.

  Nico was looking at Rosie: looking scared. She smiled at him, shrugging slightly. Adée began, ‘M’sieur, this is my café, my customers are entitled surely—’

  ‘You don’t care about curfew?’

  ‘So who’s on the street?’

  ‘Not yet they aren’t. Anyway, shut your face.’ He’d seen Rosie and as it were gone on point, wasn’t looking anywhere else now. Georges or Patrice might have tried to strike a bargain, she guessed – Patrice, more likely. Give away a British agent, retain at least some fingernails and say a working testicle. But this was her party now, for sure, hers and the Frenchman’s; he’d stopped with his open hand extended towards her over the heads of Sougy and Laplanche – whose eyes like Nico’s were fixed on her, Sougy’s pink-rimmed in his unshaven face and Laplanche’s simply bulging.

  ‘Papers!’

  ‘Mine?’ She glanced around as if for explanations: then back at him. ‘Why, what—’

  ‘Papers!’

  ‘Very well.’ Reaching for her folded raincoat. ‘They’re perfectly in order. Just a minute – you’ll see…’

  One of the SS came forward to stand beside the civilian with his Schmeisser covering her. Her bag – Léonie’s – containing the pistol which she didn’t want them to find, was on the bench on her right-hand side, close against her, and in turning the other way to get at the raincoat and unbutton its inside pocket she managed to push the bag closer to Nico. She was half-standing – now right up – had room, just, between bench and table – had that pocket open and was pulling the papers out; the gestapist reached to snatch them from her and she dumped herself down again, this time pushing the bag off the bench, meeting Nico’s shocked eyes and shaking her head slightly – a twitch, no more, intended as an instruction to leave it, not politely and unhelpfully pick it up for her.

  ‘You are Jeanne-Marie Lefèvre?’

  ‘As you can see.’ She had her back to Nico now. ‘As anyone can see!’

  ‘You’re wanted for questioning. You’ll come with us now.’ A nod to the SS man beside him, who passed his Schmeisser to another of them and produced a pair of handcuffs. Gesturing to Rosie to come out from behind the table. Adée’s voice again. ‘If the young lady’s papers are in order, as I’m sure they must be—’

  ‘Ta gueule!’ A glance round, and a quieter order: ‘She opens it again, hit her.’ He’d snatched the coat from Rosie, checked its side pockets and shaken it, tossed it back to her. She began to edge out sideways but paused while Nico – rather gallantly, she thought – held it so she could get her arms into the sleeves. She thanked him. The Frenchman could only be a gestapist, she thought, one of the thousands who worked for the Geheime Staatspolizei. If he’d been one of the Bonny-Lafont lot he’d have had his own people with him, not SS. The trooper had grabbed her right arm, snapped a handcuff on that wrist and the other now on his own left one. Taking his Schmeisser back then, cradling it in his right arm. Rosie demanding of the Frenchman: ‘Why are you arresting me?’

  ‘As if you didn’t know!’ To the others then, with a jerk of the head, ‘Let’s go.’ One held the door open, one went out into the alleyway and this one followed, dragging her
behind him: if she’d tried to hold back it would have hurt. No point in inviting pain – which was coming anyway. Or resisting in any way, for that matter. None of the Germans had said a single word. Had no French, maybe. Although this one had seemed to understand it. Rosie was close to Adée for a second, muttered, ‘Don’t worry, I’ve done nothing, they’ll release me when they realise.’ Then as she was jerked forward, almost off her feet, ‘Tell him to go ahead without me.’

  ‘Out!’

  Stumbling, again almost falling; then they were all outside and surrounding her, boots loud on the cobbles, the Frenchman bringing up the rear. If Leblanc got that message he might go ahead and raid the Rue de la Pompe house. Nico would tell him how certain she’d been that that was the place: he would, surely. As long as Leblanc’s business tonight went well: which please God…

  End of the alleyway – Rue de Clignancourt. On the far side of the road a black or grey Citroen and a Wehrmacht half-ton truck were being guarded by four more SS. Making a squad of eight – crack troops in steel helmets and with automatic weapons, all for her? In anticipation of trouble from résistants, she supposed. Taking no chances… The gestapist was telling the man who was linked to her, ‘In the back with her. No – in mine. Rest of ’em in the truck and follow, stay close.’

  She was pushed in and made to slide over from the pavement side, while the Frenchman got in behind the wheel. Doors slamming, engines starting. Off the kerb then and away, quite slowly along to the corner and right into the Boulevard de Rochechouart. Picking up speed then. Dark streets and only a shred of moon, reek of cigarettes – but not French ones, she noticed, wishing someone would give her one. Left into Rue Pigalle. A familiar route, this far, and with no other traffic whatsoever, driving fast. There’d be Boche patrols out though, bound to be. She thought, Let’s have a crash. At the next corner let’s have a lovely smash-up! The hat in front of her tilted as the driver half-turned his head: ‘Listen. You said to that old woman, tell him go ahead without you. Tell who to go ahead with what?’

  ‘Entirely private business. In any case you must have misheard me slightly.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘You’ll tell us anyway. Save yourself a lot of suffering if you just answer questions as they’re asked.’

  ‘I’ve nothing to answer. What I said to my friend in the Blue Dog – I’ve done nothing wrong, as soon as that’s established I’ll be back. Look, I’ll want my papers back too, so—’

  ‘Forged papers. Forged in London, eh? And you feel safe’ – they were passing the Opera, Rue de Richelieu ahead, and doing about seventy-five – ‘feel safe because you think the Americans will soon be here. Well, maybe, but by that time you won’t be, you’ll be on your way east. To Ravensbrück, I expect.’

  ‘And where will you be scuttling off to?’

  Shouldn’t have asked that. And he’s probably right, it will be Ravensbrück. Second time round, they might actually get me there. Can’t have all the luck. The gestapist was assuring her that she certainly would not be here for the Americans or her own people to find: she could count on that, it was policy now to ship captured agents east, to be disposed of. Rosie believed him: also that being ‘disposed of’ was what it would amount to. In fact always had. Only now they had a deadline, would be in a hurry. But – Rouquet and Léonie, same thing? In which case what was in Rue de la Pompe – if anything, anyone? This rescue attempt pointless from the start, for all anyone had known? Well, they had known: she remembered Hyatt saying, ‘Does give us some chance – we hope…’ And that was it – as long as there was any hope at all, you had to try. Thinking then of Lise – that Ravensbrück trip, the interruption to their journey east when Lise had done exactly what Rosie had told her, with admirable promptitude – Rosie making her own run for it and being shot, Lise diving under the stopped train and rolling down the bank into the river Meurthe, in leg-irons which might have drowned her – and no fingernails at all on her left hand, by that time. But ultimately surviving, getting home with the information they’d had to get out somehow.

  And that had been a hell of a long shot. So – cross your fingers…

  Out of l’Avenue de l’Opéra into Rue Rivoli, westward, towards Place de la Concorde and the Champs Elysees. Taking her where – Rue des Saussaies? Could be: if he turned up Rue Royale, for instance, then into Rue St Honoré. Longish way round, for sure. But if not Rue des Saussaies, where? Seeing that the Sicherheitsdienst headquarters in Avenue Foch had shut up shop. Please, not a Lafont establishment. The address one hadn’t bothered with, for instance – Place des Etats-Unis. Could be: if Leblanc had been misinformed…

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘You – Ravensbrück!’

  The smart answer seemed to have amused him. She said, ‘By then I’ll have something to laugh about – the thought of you dangling from a lamp-post. Isn’t that what the Resistance are saying they’ll do with traitors?’

  ‘Traitor? I’m a Doriotist – and, let me tell you, proud—’

  ‘Doriot’s done a bunk, I heard.’ Doriot, head of the Parti Populaire Française, who’d seen his own destiny as Führer of an independent French Nazi state. She added, ‘Most of his close supporters have too. As you’d know.’ She was improvising slightly, but it was close enough to what Georges Dénault had told her last Friday night or the early hours of Saturday; Doriot had run for it and so had his friend Darnand – former French Army war hero turned rabidly anti-Semitic thug, chief of the Milice and proud bearer of the rank of Sturmbannführer in the Waffen SS. The car was slowing, its driver growling, ‘The fact the so-called Allies may be in Paris soon doesn’t mean Germany’s lost the war. Don’t think that, for one moment. In any case you won’t see the end of it.’

  Breaking off then: winding his window down and spitting out the stub of his cigarette. They were in the Champs Elysées – but not continuing west, instead turning up towards those fine old buildings behind gardens and chestnut trees. And waking up to it then: to the fact that she was being brought to Clausen. Jacqui’s voice in memory, rather surprisingly answering her question as to where he had his office, telling her offhandedly, ‘L’Avenue Champs Elysées – Propaganda Abteilung, they call it.’

  Chapter 15

  Nils Iversen died in the early hours of Sunday and that night the Norwegians had buried him and the other one – Sundvik – canvas-wrapped and weighted, in deep water on the outside of this slope of rock. Pending the return of Sven Vidlin there was no certainty about leaving the Ekhorn here, some doubt therefore as to how long MGB 600 might have to stay if she was to escort the Norwegian back to Shetland. Petter Jarl wasn’t competent to conduct the survey as planned by Iversen, so that had to be called off, obviously: Iversen hadn’t had the foresight to allow for the contingency of his own death.

  Ben had offered to transfer to the Ekhorn for the trip back – not as CO, which might have ruffled some Norwegian feathers, but as navigator and in the hope of not getting separated from each other as they had on the way over – and Hughes had agreed it might be a good solution. He wanted his passengers, though – agents and escapers whom with luck Vidlin would be bringing; there was also the cargo of weaponry in 600’s forepeak, which he’d have transferred to the Ekhorn if she’d been staying in the fjords but might now have to take back to Shetland.

  During Sunday and again on Monday there’d been air patrols – seaplanes, again. As likely as not patrol boats too, which one didn’t see. It wasn’t easy to just sit and do nothing, but Hughes was insisting that not a face or movement should be shown outside the netting. The first day had been all right – having just got here, and having the petrol to dump – but Saturday had been tedious, Sunday rather more so. That evening – last evening, this was Monday now – there’d been the committal of Iversen and Sundvik, also the retrieval of about half the petrol – enough to top up the Ekhorn’s tanks. Ben thought he’d have done that in daylight – could have done so safely enough, ke
eping under the nets and with a constant lookout skyward, as they’d done when they’d been dumping it – but Hughes was becoming more and more cautious as time went on. Ben supposed he was right, in principle: it would only take one careless move, and one pair of German or quisling eyes just happening to spot it.

  Anyway – Monday night now – getting towards midnight. Four whole days gone. Main purpose of the operation blown – by Iversen getting himself knocked off, poor fellow – and the only achievements so far being to have dropped a load of 100-octane over the side and then hauled a lot of it up again. Idle thoughts while playing liar dice with Hughes and Cummings in 600’s wardroom; both thoughts and game then interrupted by Nick Ball sending down word that they had visitors – a pulling-boat, might be Vidlin…

  Lightning evacuation – to the upper deck forward, to look out from under the netting. Ball was already there, and a dozen sailors who’d come up through the forehatch. Hughes barking, ‘Gangway, please!’ – stooping double under the netting, getting around the two-pounder mounting and then over anchor gear – and already hearing oars thumping in rowlocks.

  ‘Challenge him, Number One!’

  Ball yelled, ‘Jens Vidlin?’

  ‘Ja, Vidlin!’

  The boat had four people in it. Within minutes it was alongside, cam netting lifted to accommodate it and passengers being helped up over the side. An excited exchange between Vidlin and some Norwegians from the Ekhorn – delight at Ekhorn having after all survived, shock and sorrow at Iversen’s and Sundvik’s deaths – Iversen’s particularly of course, since he’d been crucial to the operation, the crucial element, in fact. A torrent of Norwegian anyway; and out of it suddenly Mike Hughes’ rather high-pitched, ‘I’ll be damned!’ and – incredibly – a girl’s laugh. Then her voice in Norwegian-accented English: ‘A shock for you – should I apologise? But I just hear what they say – Nils Iversen, that’s terrible…’