Jonathan swung around behind the ME109, dropping just beneath the German’s altitude as the plane turned toward France. He hung there grimly, stubbornly, knowing the Messerschmitt was faster, that ultimately he would fall farther and farther behind. But still he pursued. If he could get just a little closer, he would blow him out of the sky. Fritz didn’t know anyone was behind him as Jonathan flew in the blind pocket formed by the Messerschmitt’s tail unit. If the Kraut slowed down a little bit . . . Then, grimly, Jonathan smiled. A dark slow sludge of oil moved along the belly of the plane. Yes, Fritz was going to slow down. It wouldn’t be long. The stain of oil widened, spread, and the Messerschmitt’s engine began to smoke.
Jonathan had no thought for anything in the world but the sleek black plane ahead of him. He was gaining on his prey, slowly, ever so slowly. Two hundred yards. One hundred and fifty yards. One hundred yards. His thumb cupped over the firing button. Not yet. Not quite yet.
One instant they flew, pursued and pursuer, almost level, the sturdy Hurricane just below the Messerschmitt, drawing nearer and nearer. The next, the ME109 abruptly slipped sideways. Jonathan, startled, did not follow quite soon enough. The 109 jinked back toward him. He had been spotted. He didn’t hear the sound of the Messerschmitt’s machine guns but he heard metallic pings against his engine plating. He dropped sideways, trying desperately to regain the offensive. The next few seconds were a whirling buffeting blur, then, straight ahead, he saw the profile of the Messerschmitt. His thumb pressed the firing button.
The Messerschmitt bucked upward, for an instant pointed straight at the sky, almost standing on its tail, before the plane fell backward, streaking flame and smoke.
Jonathan tried to level out. His altimeter wasn’t registering. Coils of icy gray smoke swirled from the engine. The white fog thickened. He couldn’t see. He released his harness, pushed back the canopy and rolled the Hurricane on her back. He gave himself a shove. As he fell free of the smoking directionless plane, he realized there was something wrong with his left leg. Tumbling backward, he gave a hard yank at the ripcord. It was slack in his hand.
“No. No.” He heard his own voice, shouting angrily through the rush of air, then painfully, gloriously, the chute snapped open, jerking him to a swaying rhythmic descent. His leg felt heavy and immovable. Blood was seeping through his trousers. He started at the dark red splotch, puzzled. He hadn’t felt a thing, but he was hurt. At least it was a slow ooze of blood, not the swift deadly gush of a severed artery. Gingerly, he tried to move the leg. Pain, for the first time, flamed the length of it. Well, if he didn’t bleed to death, he should be all right—if he could inflate his Mae West. He looked down. For an instant, what he saw made no sense at all.
He had begun pursuing the ME109 over the Channel. From that moment on, he had concentrated totally on staying in the invisible pocket just below his prey. Abruptly, Jonathan understood. The 109 had turned for its home base, Jonathan following. Now, instead of the cold blue-gray choppy waters of the Channel below him, Jonathan saw, rushing up, faster and faster, the rolling hilly farmland of Northern France, Nazi-Occupied Northern France.
Maj. Erich Krause ignored the middle-aged man standing tensely in front of his desk. Instead, Krause finished reading the last few paragraphs of the report, initialed it, sat back in his chair. He looked with satisfaction around the high-ceilinged room though his face didn’t change at all. His skin tended to a grayish hue, emphasizing his sharply green eyes. His eyes had a peculiar penetrating quality. Sgt. Schmidt once told his wife, “Maj. Krause’s eyes gleam like a cat’s. I think,” he had added with a rush, “they would have killed him for a witch if he’d lived two hundred years ago.” Now those pale ice-green eyes studied the rich red of the velvet drapes and the elaborate wheat frond pattern of the molding and the exquisite grace of the crystal drops on the massive chandelier. His office had once served a wealthy Parisian. His nostrils flared just a little, the only change in that grayish still face. He had come a long way from Hamburg and the bitterly cold, filthy cellar. He remembered again, as he had remembered so many times, his shock, the unbelieving shock and horror, when he’d straggled back to Germany, wounded and sick after the War’s end in 1918, and found his mother in that cellar, found her only in time to see her die, swept away by pneumonia, her strength gone because she had been too long hungry and cold. He often recalled that cellar, remembered deliberately. The cellar in its chill and filth represented all those lean and miserable and angry years when Germans starved, when a wheelbarrow load of money was not enough to buy a meal, when there was no work, no future, no hope.
He first heard Adolph Hitler speak in Brandenburg on a hot July day in 1931 and he had been caught up by the Fuehrer’s magnetism. Krause had followed him, believed in him, first as a hanger on, then as an accepted follower, then as a neophyte in Himmler’s SS. And now, not quite ten years later, he sat in warmth and comfort in a Paris office, a sub-section chief in the Geheime Staats Polizei
The Gestapo.
He pulled a stack of folders to him. He was getting quite a good ring of informers together. He had authorized the release yesterday of fifteen more petty criminals from the Cherche-Midi jail. In exchange for their freedom, they would be the eyes and ears of the Gestapo against those foolhardy Frenchmen who dared oppose the New Order.
Like the miserable specimen standing in front of him.
Krause looked up now and enjoyed the quick, involuntary gasp of his prisoner. Krause’s pale green eyes stared into the man’s brown eyes until they shifted and slipped away. Still Krause stared until finally, reluctantly, fearfully, the Frenchman again met his gaze. Krause felt a quick surge of warmth in his entrails. What a frightened little rabbit. How long would it take to make the rabbit squeal?
Krause picked up a folder from his polished desk, fine walnut from the Louis XV period, opened it and began to read in an almost gentle soothing voice. “Name: Louis Robards. Home address: 7 Rue de Douai. Profession : railroad worker. Born June 6, 1895 in the 13th Arrondissement, Paris. You have worked in the yards at Gare de L’Est for twenty-three years.”
Robards listened, his shoulders hunched. He twisted a railroad cap in big work-toughened hands.
Slowly, almost sadly, Krause shook his head. “It is a shame to see a man throw away all those years of good work. Who put you up to it, Robards?”
Robards looked down at his cap.
“Come now, Robards. You didn’t do it on your own.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“No? Then you shouldn’t have been so quick to tell your mates that some trains might leave the yards with their brakes filed down.”
Robards hunched one shoulder higher than the other. He felt a little prickle of confidence. They couldn’t hang a man for big talk. Not even the Gestapo. “I didn’t do anything.”
“But we know of a train that did leave for Berlin . . . with its brakes sabotaged.”
Robards shrugged. “It didn’t have anything to do with me.”
Krause’s eyes flickered almost imperceptibly to the thick-set blond man in a grayish rumpled suit who stood just behind and a little to the left of the prisoner.
With no change of expression, efficiently, almost casually, the man closed his fist, swung.
The totally unexpected blow caught Robards low in his back, just above the kidney. The hard solid sound mingled with his scream of pain. Thrown forward, he slammed into Krause’s desk then collapsed on the floor, his breath coming in high sharp whimpers. He was still bleary and sick when his tormentor reached down and hauled him to his feet, gripping Robards’s arm viciously.
The worker tried weakly to pull away. The pain in his arm increased. Dimly he heard Krause, “Stand up, Robards. Stand very still and listen to me. I am going to ask you some more questions and this time, this time, I want you to answer them very, very quickly. If you do not . . .” He paused and waited until Robards’ quivering face looked at him, “If you do not, Hans and I will take you upstairs to the i
nterrogation room.”
It was very quiet in the office now, the only sounds were Robards thin high breaths and the tick of the Dresden clock on the marble mantel and the faraway clatter of a typewriter in an outer office.
“Now,” Krause’s voice was reasonable, a schoolmaster pointing out the logic of inevitability, “it would be better for you if you do not have to go upstairs. Here,” and his eyes once again swept the beautiful room, the Empire breakfront, the long low table with Moorish lines, the Flemish tapestry with a dusty king on horseback, “we can discuss things, talk quietly. Upstairs would not be so pleasant.”
Hans loosed his grip and Robards stood on his own, swaying, breathing unevenly. Hans stepped back a pace until once again he stood just behind and a little to the left of the prisoner. Robards half turned to look behind him.
“Achtung!” Krause shouted.
Robards jerked forward.
“You are to look at me.” Krause commanded. “Only at me.”
Robards faced forward, but his whole body trembled.
“Now,” once again Krause’s voice was smooth, agreeable, unhurried, “where were we? Oh yes, we were talking about your work. Very fascinating work it must be, Robards. Very important work.” Krause’s face hardened. “Very important work to the Fuehrer, Robards. Nothing must be permitted to interfere with train shipments. Nothing.”
Again the blow was totally unexpected, a vicious punch into the same kidney. Robards’ scream was a shriek of agony.
This time as Hans hauled him to his feet, he writhed in pain and sobbed, “I will tell you, let me tell you, don’t hit me again, I will tell you . . .”
Krause looked at him with a quiver of distaste. What a sniveling weak degenerate. No wonder the French were defeated. There was no room for them in the New World that Germany was building. They were only fit to be slaves.
“. . . not a gang. Nothing like that. I was drinking wine, one night after work, and we all got to talking and everybody said how easy it would be to sabotage things, in the yard, and I said, sure, it would be easy, I could do it like a shot. Later, I thought about it some more. Last week I filed the brakes on one of the goods trains going to Berlin. That’s all I did. But I did it on my own.” He was breathing more easily now, his face still streaked with tears, his mouth trembling, but his voice stronger. “Nobody else was involved. Just me.”
Krause stared at him for a long moment, his eyes as clear and cold and green as an ice-locked stream high in the Alps. “All on your own. But you talked about sabotage with the other men.”
Robards gave a shrug. “It was just talk over a glass of wine.”
“Where do you drink your wine?”
Robards looked puzzled but answered willingly enough. “The Coq d’Or. It’s a block from the yards. It’s a railroad workers’ bar.”
“The Coq d’Or.” Krause nodded. “Good. Sergeant, this evening we will take M. Robards with us and pay a visit to the Coq d’Or.”
“But why?” Robards asked.
“Why? To arrest some Frenchmen, M. Robards. At least twenty men. Anyone who seems to recognize you.”
“But why? I told you,” his voice rose higher and higher. “I filed the brakes. I, alone am responsible. No one helped me.”
Krause’s green eyes, cold as death, turned toward him. “The goods train was to slow near Dusseldorf to let a troop train pass. The brakes failed.”
It was so quiet in the elegant room.
“Seven German soldiers died. So now, Robards, you will die and for every dead German there will be at least two dead Frenchmen.”
“He can’t stay here!”
Linda looked at her sister in shocked dismay. She had been uncertain, that was true, of Eleanor’s reaction. But she would never have expected this. Never.
Eleanor whirled away, almost running to the windows that overlooked the street. She stood, half hidden by the long green drapes, staring down into the narrow street. Without turning, she asked sharply, “You came here directly from the hospital?”
Linda couldn’t answer. She couldn’t bear to look at Michael, to see the flush rising up his thin face, and to hear his stuttered, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think. Of course, it is insupportable. I see that now. I’ll leave immediately, of course.”
He couldn’t leave. It was almost dusk. Curfew wasn’t until ten p.m., but it wasn’t safe for a lone young man to wander about Paris. In the beginning, curfew had been at eight p.m. Since July 5, the Germans, in their kindness, had permitted Parisians to be on the streets until ten. But it wasn’t at all safe. Michael still wore what was so obviously, ragtag or not, a British uniform. He didn’t speak French. He wouldn’t have a chance, Linda thought, not a chance in a million. Surely Eleanor wouldn’t turn him out tonight. Early tomorrow, Linda would take him away, find some place for him, but surely Eleanor would let him stay the night.
Eleanor swung around. “Did you come straight—” She looked from Linda to Michael, then back to Linda. “Oh my dear,” and she hurried across the room, slipped her arms around her sister, “I didn’t mean we weren’t going to help Michael. I only meant we must get him out of here before the Gestapo comes.”
“The Gestapo?” Linda repeated. “Why on earth . . .”
Eleanor was impatient with them. “Don’t you see, children,” and Linda realized oddly that she and Michael, of an age, still seemed like children to her older sister, “when they find Michael gone, and he may be missed by the evening meal,” he nodded unhappily, “they will send out search parties. They have dogs. It won’t take them long when they realize they can’t pick up Michael’s scent anywhere around the wall to decide he probably didn’t leave that way. They’ll try to figure how he could possibly have gotten away. They keep records of visitors.” Eleanor’s plump dark face was not the least chiding. She smiled reassuringly, “We should at the least have a few hours. We’ll . . .”
“My Lord, I never thought!” Michael cried. “Mme. Masson, I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t put you and Linda in danger for anything. I just wanted so badly to escape. All I could think of was getting away and, when I saw the car, I knew I could get away in the trunk, but I never thought about their coming after Linda. I’ll leave now. If they don’t find me here, I mean, it’s better that they find me somewhere else.”
“They aren’t going to find you.” It was a statement, final, absolute. Eleanor reached for the huge telephone directory. “First, we’ll call . . .” Her words broke off in mid-sentence. She lifted her head to listen. Linda, too, looked toward the door.
Michael looked desperately around, then flung himself the six or seven feet across the room to press against the wall where he would be hidden by the opening door. He grabbed up a knobbed cane from the ceramic umbrella holder.
The door burst open and Robert rocketed into the room.
Linda was so relieved that she didn’t even hear his first words, but she heard the last.
“. . . and I’m sure it’s the Gestapo! It’s a gray-green Citroen. The driver’s in uniform, a corporal, but one of the men in the back seat has on a dark-gray suit and black hat and everybody says that’s how you know the Gestapo, a man in civilian clothes in a German Army car. The car’s stopped at the end of our block. Do you suppose they are hunting for the Mayers? M. Caborn told me . . .”
“Robert,” his mother said sharply, “are they downstairs here? Outside our building?”
“Yes, and I saw a lorry of troops, at the other end of the block and they are dropping men off.”
Eleanor paled. Linda took a deep breath. That was how the Germans searched for hidden soldiers. They surrounded a block and then went into every flat, every room, every closet, the roofs and the cellars.
Michael stepped forward, “I’ll go down the back way.” He looked at Linda, “Is the garage to the right? I’ll try to get back as near the car as I can and, when they . . . if they catch me, I’ll say I hid myself in the trunk and had just worked it open. And that you didn’t know I was there. I w
ill swear it.”
Robert had turned, startled to see him, but he understood at once. “Oh,” he said quickly, “Oh, Mama, I see.”
So quick, Linda thought, to understand. Thirteen years old and he recognized without any real shock that his mother might help an escaping soldier hide.
Downstairs the entry door slammed. A loud knocking reverberated up the stairwell from the concierge’s door.
Skinny, long-legged Robert, all elbows and knees and uneven voice, grabbed Michael’s arm. “Quick. I can hide you. Quick.”
Michael looked swiftly at Eleanor. Her face ashen, she nodded. Then they were gone, the door closing quietly behind them. Oh, Robert learned quickly.
Eleanor said brusquely, “I will be in the kitchen, Linda. Pretend you have been . . . ” She glanced around the living room as she hurried toward the narrow hall that led to the kitchen. “Pretend you have been writing letters.”
Linda hurried to the roll-top desk, pushed up the curving front piece that had such a tendency to stick in wet weather. But, of course, there had been no wet weather. Hot and clear and lovely it had been, this August. She settled into the straight chair, swiftly pulled out a little stock of thick cream-colored stationary, lifted the wooden pen out of the inkwell.
“Dear Frank,” she scrawled quickly on the top of the page, “it was so good to hear from you and Betty. I certainly appreciate the work you’ve done in settling the estate and forwarding payments to Eleanor and me. She is without any other income now. There has been no word from Andre since May. His unit was in Belgium, near Bruges, but she has heard nothing since the Armistice. I am afraid . . .” She lifted her pen, held her head rigid, listening. She had written a letter yesterday to her brother, mailed it in the afternoon, but it was something to do now, words she could scrawl by rote, as she waited for that heavy knock on the door.
Escape From Paris Page 4