The FitzOsbornes at War

by Michelle Cooper

  I don’t know how it happened. Perhaps some neighbour had a grudge against them and turned informer. Anyway, the Germans came. One morning I heard some cars drive up, so I grabbed my water bottle and my empty plate and dived into the hiding place. I’d just pulled the cover over myself when someone ran into the stables. I could hear scuffling noises, as though they were kicking straw over the floorboards on top of me. Then they ran out, and there was a horrible long silence. I had no idea what was going on. After a while, I heard shouting – German, I thought, although it does sound a lot like Flemish – and a few minutes later, there were all these people stampeding overhead. I could hear a girl pleading and crying, and I thought, ‘I should give myself up. I’ll climb out, say that these people didn’t know anything, tell them I’d discovered this hiding place all by myself – then the Germans will leave them alone.’ But how likely was it that the soldiers would believe that? Maybe they had only vague suspicions that this family was part of the Resistance; maybe if I revealed myself now, I’d simply be signing the family’s death warrants. So I just lay there, paralysed with indecision, soaked in sweat, with all this crashing going on above my head. They were pulling the stables apart, it sounded like. Then, all at once, it was over. They stomped away and not long afterwards, I heard the cars start up and drive off.

  Well, I wasn’t stupid. I didn’t know how many cars there’d been. They could have left a soldier guarding the doorway, for all I knew. So I stayed where I was, for hours and hours. It was like being buried alive in a very narrow coffin – totally black, except for a thin line of light down one side of the lid, and that grew dimmer and dimmer. A couple of times I fell asleep, then woke with a jolt, not certain if I was awake or asleep, dead or alive . . .

  I still have nightmares about that.

  It was early the next morning, just as it was starting to get light again, that I heard footsteps, then someone prising up the cover of my hiding place. I was so stiff by that stage that I couldn’t have run away or fought them off, if it had been the soldiers. But it was a man in those black robes that priests wear. He helped me out, then told me the Nazis had taken away the entire family, except the baby. No one knew where they’d gone or what was going to happen to them – whether they’d be shot or hanged, or imprisoned in Belgium, or sent off to a concentration camp in Germany. The Nazis never told anyone – friends or family or the Red Cross – what they did to the Resistance workers they caught. The poor people simply vanished.

  I felt sick. So ashamed, so guilty. I realised I should have sat in that field with my parachute and waited for the German patrols to find me. When I thought of all the people who’d helped me so far . . . that little boy I’d put in danger . . . Well, I told the priest that he had to leave me alone now, and I’d walk as far as I could get from the farm and then turn myself in to the authorities.

  He hit the roof. I didn’t know a priest could swear like that. He said they were all doing their duty as patriotic Belgians, and that my duty was to get back to England so I could rejoin my squadron and bomb the hell out of the Nazis. Then he dragged me outside to his battered little car and shoved me into the front seat, and we’d driven off before I knew what was happening. I never did find out if he was a real priest, but he was certainly a saint. He drove me to the outskirts of Brussels and then I was bundled into the back of a van that looked like some sort of official city vehicle. We drove straight past the German sentries, right into the middle of the city, and I was left with an elderly lady, who took me up to her apartment. I stayed there a couple of days because they were waiting for two more Allied airmen. In the meantime, the Resistance people took my photograph and organised false identification papers for all of us. When everything was ready, we caught a train to Tournai and then walked into the countryside, and over the border into France.

  Oh – I forgot to say that there was a new set of guides for each stage of the journey, and it took a whole day and half a night to travel the thirty miles from Brussels to the border. I was starting to think half the Belgian population was working for the Resistance, and they were all so dedicated and diligent – but of course, terribly anxious. And little things were always going wrong. For instance, we ended up leaving Brussels later than planned because one set of documents didn’t look convincing enough. We had to keep changing trains, then getting out and walking for hours to avoid the German patrols. But eventually we got across the border in the middle of the night and were handed over to a young man waiting for us in the woods.

  Of course, there was another snag then. There were supposed to be two people to take us to Lille, and then accompany us on the train to Paris. The new man – Jacques, he told us to call him – had an argument with the Belgian people. I couldn’t follow all of it, but I think Jacques was meant to collect three more evaders when we got to Lille, and the Belgians thought that was too many for one man to handle. They said we were bound to attract attention, but Jacques insisted it wouldn’t be a problem, he could do it. Then the Belgians said something about a difficulty with our French documents, but Jacques said, ‘No, no, I have them!’ And he took away our Belgian papers and handed us French identity cards, work permits and train tickets. ‘There won’t be any problem,’ he kept saying. ‘When have I ever been stopped?’ Then he said we had to leave right then, or we’d miss our train. So off we went to Lille.

  The train to Paris was packed, but Jacques kept a close eye on all six of us airmen. I tried not to look at him, but whenever I glanced in his direction, he’d nod, as if to say everything was fine. And the more he did this, the more uneasy I felt, but I just told myself that things must be different in France. Perhaps the French Resistance didn’t need to worry as much as the Belgians. Jacques had obviously done this many times before – he looked very confident.

  The trip took a few hours and when we reached Paris, we climbed down onto the platform and I realised we were at Gare du Nord. Well, that sent an icy shiver down my spine, I can tell you. I couldn’t help remembering the last time I’d seen it – when you, me, Veronica and Simon were on our way to Geneva with that German officer chasing us – and now the platform was crawling with uniformed Nazis, and probably a whole lot more of them in plain clothes. As we walked through the station, there was a sudden commotion to one side and I saw a Nazi soldier with a baton beating up a little Frenchman. Everyone else was stepping round them, as if it were a routine occurrence. It probably was. I was certain that at any second, it would all be up for us, but no, we walked straight out into the street and kept going. That seemed odd to me too, because I was used to having a new guide for each stage of our journey. But Jacques whispered, ‘Follow me and keep close, but don’t worry, everything is all right. We are going to the safe house.’

  We walked and walked until we came to a residential area, with narrow streets and rows of apartment buildings. We were in a loose line, spread out so as not to look too suspicious, and I was at the end. Then I saw Jacques stop outside a building and light a cigarette, and one by one, the others drifted through the front door. I was just about to follow when I glanced further along the street and saw a car parked around the corner, a big black Mercedes. I could only see the front of it, but the man in the passenger seat was tall and blond, sitting up all stiff and straight.

  And then I heard a voice say, very distinctly, Gebhardt.

  Well. I still don’t know if it was real, whether someone in the car spoke out loud, or . . . Or maybe I was just spooked from seeing Gare du Nord full of Nazis and that’s why I remembered you saying that, Sophie, the way you did when you caught sight of him at Calais all those years ago. I don’t even know if it was him. I barely got a glimpse of him that time in Calais. But the men in the car were Nazi officers, obviously – who else would be driving a fancy car in Paris? The question was: had they just happened to park near this safe house, or were they waiting for us? Jacques was giving me impatient looks by then, so I stepped into the foyer of the building – with him following close behind – but al
l the hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end. It simply didn’t feel right. He was too confident. I tried to catch the eye of one of the other airmen, but they were already filing into the elevator after Jacques. So I edged backwards till they started to pull the gate across, then dashed off down the corridor, looking for the stairs. If I was wrong, no matter – I’d just say I got confused. But as I was closing the stairwell door behind me, I heard new voices in the foyer – German voices – and I peeked out and there were three Nazis, led by that tall blond one, walking in through the front door. So I ran down half a flight of stairs and out another door, into a little courtyard hung with damp laundry. I scrambled over the brick wall into the next yard, and then over a gate into a side alley. I was still standing there, pressed against the wall in the shadows, catching my breath, wondering if I’d just made a complete idiot of myself for nothing, when I heard someone shouting in German. And then, at the far end of the alley, I saw two of the airmen being led off in handcuffs down the street.

  That bloody Jacques was a double agent. No wonder he never had any problems getting official documents! I thought for one wild moment about trying to rescue those airmen, but I knew it was absolutely hopeless. So I sneaked off down the alley in the opposite direction, and once I was round the corner, I strode off as though I knew exactly where I was going. Of course, I had no idea what to do next. I might have been able to find my way back to Gare du Nord, but it was full of Nazis and I didn’t have any money to buy a train ticket, and where could I have gone, anyway? I knew no one in France, and even if I’d had some way of contacting the Resistance, they might well think that I’d been the double agent.

  So I kept walking, feeling more and more panic-stricken and lost, until I was nearly bowled over by a barrel of cider. A man had been unloading them from the back of his lorry and one had escaped. So I grabbed it and rolled it back up the hill, and helped the man with the rest of the barrels, which he was delivering to the back of a shop. He was cursing away, about how his useless brother-in-law was supposed to have come along to help him, and why couldn’t that shopkeeper get up off his lazy backside and give him a hand, and so on. After we finished, we sat down to mop our faces and he said he couldn’t wait to get out of this stinking hot city, where everyone – present company excepted – was so rude and unhelpful. All he wanted was to get back home to Beauvais, even though it was fifty miles and that stupid gazogène he’d installed on his lorry to burn charcoal for fuel would probably conk out halfway there.

  So I said, ‘Ah, Beauvais! What a coincidence, I’m heading that way, too!’

  And he snorted, because he’d obviously picked up my accent and knew I wasn’t French, and said, ‘Oh, yes? What do you do there?’

  I explained that I was a farmhand – which was what my fake work permit said – and that although I wasn’t familiar with the locality, I’d been told I might find work there.

  And he nodded slowly, looking me up and down, and said, ‘You might. Lots of market gardens and dairy farms. Best to stay out of the town itself, though, unless you know someone there – and you’d need work papers.’ So I showed him my documents and he suddenly jumped up and said, ‘Right, let’s get going. But if we get stopped, I just picked you up on the side of the road, understand?’

  He wasn’t part of the Resistance – he just hated bureaucracy, whether it was the German or the French variety. He pretty much spent the entire journey whingeing about rationing and regulations and red tape, and how the government was practically forcing him to sell his goods on the black market. He dropped me off just outside Beauvais, pointed out the best way to go, and warned me to avoid Compiègne in the east, because the Nazis had set up an internment camp there.

  So there I was, somewhere in Picardy, starving, homeless, the sun starting to set – but at least I wasn’t being interrogated by the Gestapo. So I began walking along the path, thankful it was summer and not the middle of winter. I passed some farms, but every time I steeled myself to approach someone, I’d lose my nerve at the last moment. I felt I’d already used up all my good luck that day. I spent the night in a barn, pinched some carrots out of someone’s garden, drank from their well. The next day I kept walking. I had this mad plan I’d walk all the way to Spain, then get in touch with the British Embassy there. But I was already lost – I had no map, no compass – and my ankle was starting to hurt again. There was no way I’d make it all the way south without help. Still, the longer I wandered about like a tramp, the less likely it was that anyone would want to help me. I must have looked pretty disreputable even then, in my grubby old farmer’s clothes.

  So I decided I’d stop at the next farm, and ask if I could work for them in exchange for food and board. The first farmer gave me some bread and cheese, but said I couldn’t stay. The second just shook his head. The third set his dogs onto me, but I ran off and climbed a tree, and they lost interest pretty quickly. I climbed down and kept on walking, avoiding the main roads, and as it started to get dark, I came to this falling-down cottage. A woman was staggering across the yard with some buckets of milk, and she plonked them down in the dust and gaped at me while I delivered my little speech. She didn’t say anything after I finished – I was beginning to wonder if she was a bit slow – so I just smiled and shrugged and was about to leave. But then I thought I might as well offer to help the poor woman carry the buckets into the house, because no one else seemed to be around, and she nodded. It wasn’t a very big farm – one outbuilding, a few cows standing about a field, a vegetable garden. We went through the back door of the cottage and set the buckets on the floor, and she gave me a long look, then said, ‘Sit down, I’ll bring you food.’

  While I was eating, she told me her husband and his brother were prisoners of war and had been sent to a labour camp in Germany. Her mother-in-law had lived with her, but had died a few months ago. The woman – Marie – kept two cows and a few chickens. She made cheese, and lived off the vegetables she could grow in her garden. I felt so sorry for her. She was twenty-three, but looked forty. I said, ‘Why don’t I stay for a while? I could fix your roof and help with the gardening. If you grew more vegetables, you could trade them – maybe for a piglet or some ducklings.’ She frowned and nodded at everything I said, and I saw she wasn’t actually slow – it was just that she’d always relied on others telling her what to do, and now she felt terribly lost and lonely.

  So I stayed. At first I was very careful not to be seen in daylight, but there were never any visitors. The farm was too small and too far off the main road for the Germans to bother raiding it. The nearest neighbours had had some sort of feud with Marie’s husband, so they mostly ignored her. She didn’t seem to have any relatives of her own. She only saw other people when she walked into the village, about four miles away, to sell her cheese. She never received any letters from her husband, or anyone else. I felt depressed just hearing about her life, but she’d never known anything better. She was so pathetically grateful any time I smiled at her, or paid her any compliments, or even listened to her, that I figured her husband must have been a complete bastard. She didn’t seem to miss him much, except as someone to run the farm. And after a while . . . well, she started to become fond of me.

  And I didn’t discourage her. Of all the awful things I did to save my skin during all that time, I think that was the worst – taking advantage of how simple and unworldly and lonely she was. I pretended I returned her feelings because that way, she wouldn’t hand me in to the authorities. I did care about her – I felt awfully sorry for her – but I wasn’t in love with her. She thought I was, but only because I wanted her to think that.

  Anyway, it backfired on me. She didn’t want me to leave. I hadn’t told her much about myself, but she knew I wanted to get back to England. I’d said I’d stay till the end of summer. I figured that would give me enough time to make contact with the local Resistance people, or at least find a map and work out a plan to travel south. But she didn’t seem to know anyone or anythin
g. The furthest she’d ever travelled was to Beauvais. She didn’t have any money, and there didn’t seem any safe way I could earn some, so it would be impossible to buy train tickets – not that I’d get very far with my fake documents, especially if Jacques had told the authorities to look out for me. So I stayed on through autumn, still trying to figure out some scheme that might work. Then it was winter, too cold to travel. When spring arrived, we were so busy with the garden, then one of the cows got sick and . . . Oh, I don’t know. I’d sort of lost track of who I was, what I was supposed to be doing. It was so isolated there. Marie didn’t own a wireless or buy any newspapers – the news would have been censored by the Nazis anyway – so I had no idea what was going on with the war. I was just living from day to day, the way she always had.

  Then one morning, late in spring, I was carrying the milk across the yard when a plane went overhead, one of ours. It shook me out of my trance. I marched into the kitchen and said to Marie, ‘This can’t go on. You have to go into the village more often, go to church, talk to people. You have to find out who the local Resistance people are.’

  She stared at me, then threw down her dishcloth and shouted, ‘No! I won’t! Because if I do, you’ll end up leaving me!’ And we argued about it for weeks. I’d say, ‘If you loved me, you’d want to help me!’ and she’d say, ‘If you loved me, you wouldn’t abandon me like this!’ And I did feel awful for her, but I couldn’t stay there forever. I didn’t feel I could push it too hard, though, because if she got mad at me, she might just decide to hand me over to the police.