Charles Saurrat was next to her, on her left, and she reached to shake his hand. Jacques had mentioned that he wasn’t yet sixteen. ‘Heard a lot about you, Charles…’
‘He’ll be your partner, more or less.’ Guichard… ‘Justine – Jacques – I’ll explain what we’ve mapped out for you. Starting with you, Jacques. It’s as we discussed yesterday, in fact. In that small pack –’ he pushed it with his foot – ‘is a fire-bomb André’s made up. I’d like you to hide yourself at the bottom of the track here, where you can see the factory gates and along the road both ways. If anything goes wrong – when the boys are inside, I mean – anything wrong or that you judge is about to go wrong – toss it into the Poste. It has to be your judgement, obviously – not just for a patrol passing – right?’
‘Right.’
‘Well – there’s a window at the back with broken panes, Charles tells me. Worst looks like coming to the worst – chuck it in there. The fuse will give you three minutes – you’re finished then, so duck out of it quick, go home – the place’ll go up in flames and divert attention from the factory while these lads make themselves scarce. All right?’
‘What do I do, pull a pin out?’
André told him, ‘It’ll have a pencil-fuse, the acid bulb type. Hasn’t yet, will have before we separate. You crush the end of it. I’ll show you.’
‘But I don’t stick around to make sure it goes off, eh?’
André – on Guichard’s right – snapped, ‘Of course it’ll bloody well go off! Think I don’t know my business?’
‘So how many charges have you made up for the job in the factory?’
‘Twenty. One for the machine – or two maybe—’
‘There are sixteen completed casings, two nearing completion, another three less well advanced. That’s twenty-one – as well as the machine.’
‘We won’t bother with the three less well advanced, then. Although if one had been told—’
‘Or had had the sense to bring a few spares. We discussed this, you know.’
‘It’s true, we did.’ Guichard, defusing the quarrel. ‘Spilt milk now, however. Justine – your part now – if you’ll agree to this… You know the side entrance – or rather exit – in Rue de l’Ecole?’
‘Yes. Opposite the playing-field.’
‘That’s your station. In fact just over the wall of the playing-field there’s a shed you and Charles could use for cover while you’re waiting. He’ll guide you – to the other side of the Poste first, from where you’ll see these five enter the factory – at midnight, and we’re working on fifteen minutes as the time they’ll need to place the charges. They’ll leave then by that side door. You can count them out – the last out will be André, he’ll give the keys to Charles and confirm to you that the charges are in place. Or are not – which God forbid. In fact I can’t imagine anything could have gone wrong that you wouldn’t already know about – arrival of a patrol, Jacques’ fire-bomb exploding, or the boys letting loose with their Stens – if the Boches had laid a trap for us, for instance. But your main concern, Justine, is to be able to confirm positively to London that the job’s been done – am I right?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s something we want too – to avert any fresh thoughts of bombing. So – André will have told you it’s all set, and you’ll hear the explosions when they detonate at twelve forty-five. Or twelve forty-four or forty-six, but giving us all ample time to be away and under cover. For your withdrawal, Justine – again, with Charles as guide, you’ve only to get across the playing-field and then that piece of grazing the butcher owns into the trees on its far side, opposite the auberge. Charles leaves you there, races down to the bottom, around the end of the wall into the manor — to return the keys to André’s father — while you go up to the road and slip across. Still well before the explosions, that should be, maybe quarter of an hour before.’
‘How long does Jacques hang around the Poste?’
‘Say twenty minutes, Jacques?’
‘Leave at twelve twenty then.’ Leaning forward to address Rosie: he was on the other side of Charles Saurrat. ‘Took us ten minutes getting here, won’t take me any longer. We’ll just about dead-heat it, maybe… Use the side-door, remember, not the front.’
‘Of course.’ She turned back to Guichard. ‘But I don’t need to delay Charles once he has the keys. I can cross a field on my own, you know. Don’t wait for me, Charles, just take off.’
‘If you’re sure, Mam’selle.’
André said, ‘When I come out, I have to lock that door behind me. Then I chuck you the keys and I take off.’
‘To the bottom of the road, over the bridge—’
‘Exactly, Justine – and across fields, into woods. Consequently, Saurrat, I don’t want to be held up either – looking for someone to give the keys to – huh?’
‘But I’ll be right at the door, Monsieur André!’
Rosie put in, ‘So will I.’
Seeing it then. The boy having shot off – she and ‘Hector’ on their own in that narrow, pitch-dark street.
His plan?
Chapter 16
‘All right. Time to move.’
Guichard, on his feet and stretching, tall against starry sky. The others reaching for their haversacks, Jacques for his smaller pack. A few minutes ago he’d muttered to Rosie, ‘You needn’t have been here – you realize? Could be in your bed, listening for the explosions an hour from now – tell you as much as our friend there will!’
‘I did explain, Jacques.’
That in Baker Street’s eyes this was her brief, or part of it. She could hardly have stayed away, told them in London later, ‘Actually I wasn’t there…’
‘Saurrat.’ André – with a haversack slung from one shoulder, Sten from the other – ‘You know every blade of grass, you’d better take the lead. All right, Jacques?’
‘I’ll come last, with Justine.’
‘So good luck, lads.’ Guichard: ‘Keep those sulphateuses on “safe”, eh?’
Sulphateuses being Maquis slang for Stens or other automatic weapons. In fact they were the chemical sprays used in vineyards. Guichard peering at Jacques: ‘No weapon?’
‘In my belt – a St Etienne.’
A French-made 9-millimetre. The big man’s attention was on Rosie now: ‘You armed?’
‘Should I be?’
A grunt: ‘You’re right. Your business.’ Large hand on her shoulder: and André close by in the darkness. Having thought about it, though, she didn’t think he’d try anything, didn’t intend to try anything herself either: for one thing, the priority was to conclude this operation successfully: for another, the near-certainty that neither of them would get away with it. Guichard shook her hand: ‘We’ll meet again, I hope.’
‘I hope so too. In any case good luck – now and later.’
There was a low murmuring of farewells. Guichard’s line of departure now would be eastward, passing behind the church and through orchard and low-lying pasture to cross the road between the cottages and the bridge, skirt around that end of the village – the way he and the rest had come – and then south to rendezvous at some point in the fringes of the woods, on their way back into the Forêt d’Othe. Rosie, beside Jacques and following the others, looked back to wave goodbye but he’d already gone – or was invisible at a distance of a dozen paces. They were out of the timber-yard then, on the track leading to the road. The plan was that she, Jacques and the boy would wait there with the others, see them sneak over the road and into the factory at midnight – it was eleven forty-eight now – and she and Saurrat would then start off themselves, passing around the back of the Poste to cross the road further along, opposite the market square, while Jacques remained in the trees near the road. He’d only move to the back of the Poste with his fire-bomb if he was going to use it.
In which event, Guichard had suggested, Rosie’s best course would be to get out of it, quick – across the playing-field and the paddock, and home. Saurrat o
n the other hand would still hang on, in order to get the keys for return to Monsieur Henri. Rosie hadn’t argued, but if some crisis did arise she’d play it off the cuff, would certainly be disinclined to leave young Charles on his own.
They’d all diverged from the track now, so as to stay in cover where it broadened near the road. In single file, Rosie following whichever of them it was – Masson, Duclos, de Rommerille, Lescalles – and Jacques close behind her. Jacques with his fire-bomb, which under André’s guidance he’d checked – by feel, more than sight – and now had the detonator in one pocket, pencil-fuse in another, wasn’t intending to put it all together unless or until he saw trouble coming. The pencil-fuse with the detonator fitted would be only about ten centimetres long, and the bomb itself – a core of PE (Cyclonite) with petrol-soaked wadding around it – was about the size of a Cantaloupe melon.
The men in the lead were stopping. Time – by Marilyn’s luminous watch – eleven fifty-five.
André called urgently, ‘Car coming!’
From the direction of the bridge: she heard it now. Seeing André moving forward, doubled, creeping closer to the road. Petrol-engined car, no gazo. Rosie thinking of the gendarmerie – only about a hundred, hundred and twenty metres to the left there – that if it was a patrol it might stop there. In which case – really lousy timing – seeing that within the next few minutes these five had to cross the road – André going ahead to unlock the personnel door in those gates.
If it was stopping there, nobody was going to be able to move at all.
A lot would depend on how long it stayed, obviously. Since the charges were pre-set to detonate at twelve forty-five.
Whatever this vehicle was, it wasn’t coming fast. Might have been coming over the bridge when André or whoever had first heard it – that sort of distance – and it wouldn’t come into sight from here until it was just about at the gendarmerie, on account of the road’s right-hand curve. Even at that range its masked headlights wouldn’t be more than pinpricks.
Engine-sound growing, but certainly not fast. Unlike the homing Boche staff-car on her first night here. Derivative thought being that waking people in the houses along the road wouldn’t exactly improve prospects of all concerned getting away unseen and unheard before the charges exploded. Especially since one of the more tricky aspects, necessitating silence, speed, invisibility et cetera, was that the house at the top, nearer end of the cul-de-sac, no more than fifty metres from the factory gates and say seventy from here, was the home of the works manager, Gaspard Legrand, chief toady to the Boche engineer Wachtel. Legrand had been softening his style of late, seeing the way the wind was blowing – so Jacques had said – but was still by no means a friend of the Resistance.
The Maquisards were crouching – taking their cue from André. Rosie did too: and Jacques – on her right now.
A whisper from – Lescalles, she thought. ‘André can see its lights. Says it seems to be stopping at the gendarmerie.’
The timing on those acid bulb fuses couldn’t be altered at this late stage. In any case messing around with them in the dark and in a hurry wasn’t to be recommended. All one could do was pray the bastards wouldn’t stay for long. Stopping for what, in any case? Maybe just for a break, wake old Hannant to make coffee for them? In which case – what, fifteen minutes?
If they took twenty, for Christ’s sake – which from their point of view mightn’t seem excessive…
‘It’s not stopping!’
General murmur of relief…
‘Coming by us any moment. Stay down.’
Small, dim headlights passing now. Rosie half risen, looking over woollen-hatted heads and between tree-trunks, seeing the low-growling shadow crawl by with a weak pool of light preceding it.
It was now passing in front of the Poste.
A Boche driving so quietly out of consideration for the villagers’ repose?
Gone, anyway. Would have passed the auberge by this time. Checking the time – eleven fifty-eight – she heard André tell those near him: ‘I’m starting. De Rommerille, count to fifteen, others count ten.’
Up and not running but moving swiftly, the rest still crouching, watching the dark figure fuse into blackness. De Rommerille meanwhile counting audibly: ‘Fourteen – fifteen –’ and he’d gone, Lescalles was starting his count. The counts were to have been of twenty and then fifteen but André had shortened them to fifteen and ten respectively to make up about half a minute of lost time. Lescalles was on his way: now Masson, and finally, Duclos: like ghosts, nothing out there either visible or audible. Rosie had been watching to the right in case that car might have turned to come back, but it was probably in the manor grounds by this time.
She touched Charles Saurrat’s arm. ‘Better move.’
‘Yep—’
Jacques murmured, ‘Take care, both of you.’
‘And you. A bientôt.’
Up this side of the Poste still in cover, then into the open to cross the cleared area behind it – catching a glint of starlight on windows at the back, one of which had broken panes, would be the one into which Jacques was supposed to throw his bomb. She followed young Saurrat down to the roadside, staying close to the Poste’s crumbly wall. He suggested as she joined him, ‘Cross together?’
‘Yes.’ Taking his hand as they crossed the forefront of gravel and weed, then a strip of broken paving. No sight or sound of anyone or anything else moving. Not even a cat. Jacques had told her that in Paris they’d eaten all the cats, but it didn’t apply here, she’d seen several. Over the road and into the market square with its central covered area. Darkness here was total: no starlight even. Out of the bandstand then and crossing cobbles, aware that no more than thirty or fifty metres away André and his team would be placing their twenty-odd explosive charges – using torches, she assumed, that would have been supplied in SOE parachutages. PE, detonators, Stens and just about everything else the l’Armée des Ombres possessed, all by courtesy of SOE, and in this geographic area mostly no doubt by the personal efforts of Joseph Lambert.
Joseph Lambert, deceased. Thanks to bloody André.
At the corner, pausing to look and listen, with a hand on the boy’s arm. Imagining that from the other side of the wall, the factory area, there should be some sound that would be at least faintly audible in this enveloping silence. But nothing – except from a distance and in the very next moment, owls hooting… She whispered, ‘Come on.’ From cobbles on to tar macadam: and on to the pavement on this side, close to the three-metre wall the top of which Charles had mentioned earlier had broken glass cemented into it. The door in it was about halfway down the road, some thirty metres from this corner. She asked Saurrat in a whisper, ‘Do the gendarmes never walk round at night?’
‘Sometimes – when night shifts are being worked. Never seen them any other time. Once it’s locked up, I suppose… And the curfew. A patrol might send them out if they thought they’d seen someone.’
‘Someone like you?’
A snigger. ‘Could be.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Oh – meeting friends, or – you know, fooling around.’ He’d stopped, suddenly. ‘Here it is.’
It was a single door, fairly wide but only for personnel – or you could have pushed a barrow through, maybe. Recessed quite deeply into the wall – flush with the inside surface, she supposed: naturally it would open inwards. Timber, smooth to the touch; the handle was an iron ring and there was a keyhole below it.
Twelve nine. Five minutes, say. She leant with her back against the wall on this higher side of the door, then moved further up to make room for Saurrat between her and it: whispering to him as she did so, ‘Best stay this side of the road – d’you think?’ He did. The alternative would have been to take cover behind the low wall opposite, or close to the shed as Guichard had suggested; but the work might go faster than they’d allowed for, and she had in mind André’s terse warning to the boy about being on the spot, on no account to delay hi
m. It was in Saurrat’s best interests, therefore. Also made sense to place themselves on this side of the door, because when the Maquisards emerged they’d be going the other way – to their right, towards the stream and open countryside. André presumably unlocking the door for them, then going back to finish whatever tasks he’d reserved for himself – or making a final check on the positioning of the charges, maybe, and/or re-locking internal doors. They’d have placed one charge inside each tube: wouldn’t matter how far in, blow a hole in it anywhere and you’d have converted it to scrap.
That hum was – she realized – traffic. A distant, rumbling sound: from the main road, presumably, at least a kilometre and a half from here. Therefore heavy traffic. Truck convoy moving east?
Even be coming here?
The turn-off to the bridge was to the northeast from here, and the distance say two kilometres… Flatbeds finally coming for the casings? Actually might be? Guichard had mentioned it as a possibility, in considering – with Jacques, in the fire-bomb context – various things that might conceivably go wrong. No one had thought it likely – this late, and with no preparations made. Jacques had concurred: if transport had been expected, Wachtel would have had the place open and ready and a team of loaders standing by.
‘Half the night, if necessary. Still could happen, but—’
‘If it did –’ Guichard to André – ‘it’d be up to you, you’d be on your own. Depending on how far you’d got, eh?’
‘Yeah, but – don’t worry…’
The growling hum was steady: no slowing for that turnoff, or rising note such as you’d get from trucks approaching. There was a happier interpretation therefore – Boches on the run, pulling out through Sens towards Troyes and points east. Thirteen minutes past twelve: she showed Saurrat the green-glowing face of Marilyn’s watch. Back then to the point that André hadn’t wanted to admit even the possibility of a convoy of the specially adapted trucks looming leviathan-like out of the night to wreck his chances of fame and glory. Which if it was his driving force in all this, pretty well guaranteed he wouldn’t be trying anything as rash as murdering the chief witness for the prosecution. One shot would rouse the village, and the keys then might not get back to his father, who if interrogated wouldn’t hold out for ten minutes – if that. And even if he might fool Guichard with some yarn such as having acted in self-defence, Rosie having tried to kill him, André would know he’d never sell it to Jacques, whose record as a résistant had already given him – one had come to realize – the right to be taken seriously, and who certainly was not one of André’s admirers.
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