Blue Noon

by Robert Ryan

  Miranda was the hellish concentration camp where would-be escapers unfortunate enough to be caught by border guards or army patrols were sent to languish. The consulate at Barcelona had the devil’s own job getting them out, so he’d heard. ‘So what are you?’

  ‘Pilot Officer Rola. Free Polish Air Force.’

  ‘Good.’

  As they carried on walking along the bank he heard Rola mutter: ‘Fastest damn promotion I ever got.’ He could tell that the Pole had a lot to learn about why the RAF might deem one pilot worth twice another, depending on which Mess they ate in.

  By now, they were both tired and hot. The sun may have been falling but it seemed to be getting fiercer as it did so, and Harry opened his case and they both took a drink of water before crossing the river. The heat hadn’t done their supply of chocolate any good, he noticed, glad he had rewrapped his in greaseproof paper at Gérard’s.

  The rowing boat the ratline used was tied to a small jetty. They clambered aboard, Harry took the oars and started to pull. ‘You’ll like this café,’ he said to Rola. ‘It was always a rendezvous for cyclists and walkers using the riverbank. Not being on a road, you don’t get any Germans, except maybe at weekends when they bring their French floozies …’

  ‘What day is it?’ asked Rola.

  ‘Thursday.’

  ‘They’ve come early, then.’

  ‘Who have?’

  ‘The Germans.’

  Harry risked a glance over his shoulder. On the dilapidated wooden jetty on the south side, a mirror image of its companion on the opposite bank, stood a German officer and his sergeant.

  ‘Bollocks,’ said Cole. ‘Are they armed?’

  ‘Pistols,’ replied Rola.

  Every half-hearted pull brought them closer, and he skimmed rather than dug the blades to slow their progress, but he knew there was nothing for it. Trying to escape in a row boat didn’t bear thinking about. ‘Do not say a word. Not a word, OK?’

  Harry felt his neck burn under the gaze of the soldiers as he pulled slow and steady, edging towards the inevitable confrontation. The boat swung in the eddies near the bank and the German sergeant reached down and grabbed the bow, yanking them to a halt. Harry muttered his thanks and stepped out.

  Rola handed up the cases and followed, perspiring heavily. The officer held out his hand in a mime of the classic demand to see some identification. They both handed over their documents and the two Germans peered at the identity cards, permits and ration books.

  ‘Where are you going?’ the sergeant asked.

  ‘We have an appointment to see a doctor. My friend here—’

  ‘I asked him,’ the sergeant snapped.

  Rola grinned inanely and shrugged.

  ‘He’s simple,’ said Harry, pointing at his own forehead and making a twirling motion with his forefinger. ‘That’s why we need to see a doctor. He’s getting worse.’

  ‘You can go,’ said the officer, handing back the papers. Harry grabbed the pile and stuffed them into his jacket pocket, not waiting to be told twice.

  ‘No,’ said the sergeant, pointing at the pilot. ‘I want to hear him speak.’

  Rola had managed to work up enough saliva to execute a convincing dribble down his chin, but still the sergeant persisted. ‘What’s in his case?’

  ‘You don’t want to look in there,’ said Harry.

  ‘Open it.’

  The officer had lost interest and was admiring a flotilla of ducks making their way downstream.

  Rola slowly opened the case and Harry quickly pointed at the sticky brown mess and exclaimed, ‘Look. He has shat in his own case. I told you he was simple.’

  Rola gurgled an embarrassed who-me? laugh and the officer grabbed his horrified sergeant. ‘Enough of this. We have a ten-minute walk to the road.’ The sergeant offered no resistance as he was pulled away, his face contorted in distaste at the sight of excrement in the case.

  Harry waited until the Germans had passed the café and were walking across a field before he said quietly, ‘I told you the chocolate would come in handy’

  As the train finally entered Marseilles and approached the centre, Harry could smell the Old Port, feel its pull. What he had heard of it suggested prime Cole territory, full of cobbled streets, seedy bars, flophouses, whorehouses—a Free State of sordidness, fuelled by drink, drugs, greed and sex. Harry Cole could be happy here, he thought, there’d be an angle or two to play. People wanting a boat to Africa, a guide across the mountains, new passports, cards testifying to non-Jewish origin, travel permits to the Occupied Zone, passage to Lisbon or Gibraltar and then England. It was a bazaar, and Harry Cole liked bazaars, particularly when it was human vices, foibles and bodies for sale or rent.

  But he wasn’t Harry Cole, he reminded himself as they walked through the streets. He was Harry Mason, soon to be His Majesty’s secret agent, and he had a package to deliver.

  The Seamen’s Mission stood on a corner, looking as grim and unwelcoming as its name suggested, a place of last resort. Harry made Rola stand in a doorway opposite for ten minutes, smoking a last cigarette together. The mission was well known enough to be an open secret, and Harry wanted to make sure there was no obvious police stake out. As he sucked the last lungful of tobacco he said, ‘Off you go.’

  ‘You’re not coming in?’

  ‘No, I’m like Moses. I don’t get to see the promised land. Hot baths, billiards, company. All yours.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I have an appointment,’ Harry said cryptically.

  Rola held out his hand. ‘Thank you, Harry.’

  Harry thought of the dead stooge in a hot, stinking hotel room and said: ‘No, thank you. Give my regards to London.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Harry, as if it was an afterthought. ‘I might as well take your fund.’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘The escape fund. The francs you were issued with as part of your escape kit. You won’t need them now, Caskie will give you money for the next stage, and we can certainly use your cash up north. In a good cause.’

  Rola hesitated and waited for Harry to crack a smile, to let him know he was joking. When he didn’t he shook his head and laughed himself. ‘Harry—’

  ‘You can’t spend them in London.’

  Rola reached inside his coat and extracted a small fold of notes and tossed them over. ‘Have a drink on me, Harry.’

  Rola turned away and had taken just two steps when Harry hissed after him, ‘Good luck, Pilot Officer.’

  Rola raised a hand to show he’d remembered his new rank, crossed the street, knocked on the door and was let in. Harry had an impression of a strong, no-nonsense face framed in the door crack, the eyes quickly taking him in before the opening disappeared. So that was Caskie, that was what a really brave man looked like.

  Harry felt the usual deflation after a delivery. Once you handed them over to the next stage, like a runner’s baton, it was a terrible anti-climax, a feeling of bereavement almost, coupled with fresh fears for your former charge. They had a lot of other obstacles to get through, and there was nothing you could do to help them. All that was left was to retrace your steps and start again.

  He shook his head to throw off his melancholy, made sure he remembered the address of the apartment that King had given him and started off through the alleys. He hesitated before a grimy-windowed bar, the interior thick with smoke and laughter, generating a freewheeling gaiety he hadn’t experienced for many a month. He lit another cigarette and ducked inside. One drink before the rendezvous. He fondled the money he’d taken from Rola. One drink on London. Surely he’d earned that. Where was the harm?

  Pieter Wolkers took a cigar, sniffed it, inhaling the deep aroma of fine tobacco, and placed it back in the humidor. He wished he smoked them, he really did, especially after Diels sent over a box after his successful penetration of an escape line operating in the Dunkirk area.

  He was sitting at his desk in the
drawing room of his house in the northern suburbs of Lille, on the edge of the band of coalfields that were causing such problems. He already thought of it as his house, this twelve-bedroom confection with its massive grounds. Of the original owner there was no sign. So, to all intents and purposes, it was his.

  He looked at the woman in front of him and felt a flash of contempt. She was scribbling as if her life depended on it. Names, addresses, rumours, unsubstantiated gossip, page after page, pouring out first her heart and then her bile: Madame Lascelle hides Allied pilots. Worse, she fucks them. And her poor husband away doing good work for the Reich. Marcel Loubet. Black marketeer. Always has petrol, food, chocolate, cigarettes. A disgrace. And so on, and so on.

  The trouble was, Wolkers was compelled to act on the information. If these busybodies just kept quiet, he could leave the lesser offenders alone. Now, though, once the report was written and signed and witnessed and filed, he must go after the horny Madame Lascelle, pass on the names of black marketeers to one of the economic enforcement bureaux springing up across the Forbidden Zone. It did not endear him to this nation at all.

  The woman paused. ‘Is that all, Madame?’

  She chewed her pencil for a second and bent forward once more, the pencil squeaking as it flew over the paper. ‘Not quite.’

  Wolkers stood and paced, noting the carpet had become dirty over the past few weeks from the constant tramp of boots and shoes. The staff had left with the owner. He must hire some more. Servants and cleaners were cheap these days. Even those who found working with a Brandenburger distasteful had to eat.

  Wolkers’s father had been German, so he felt a kinship with the Reich, even though he hated seeing the Netherlands, his mother’s country, over-run. His choice to work for the Germans had been practical, though. He had no great ideological battle to wage, not like some of the civilians helping the Abwehr and SD. He, too, had to eat and get on in this world, and he had to face it, the world belonged to Germany now. Was there much difference between cleaning the house of a German and working for them in other ways? No. Not at all.

  The woman stopped again. ‘There is one thing … an Englishman … organising the escapees.’

  Wolkers suddenly stopped pacing. Diels liked English escape organisers. One would be worth a lot more than a box of cigars. ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. I have just heard there is one in this area.’

  ‘Well, I think I could have told you that, Madame.’

  ‘I have a name.’

  Well, that might be something. Wolkers took out the pile of occupation Reichsmarks and stripped out a bundle without counting. ‘I know you are doing this out of patriotic duty, but some expenses are in order—’

  She pursed her lips, creating a thousand tiny furrows. ‘I would prefer francs.’

  ‘And I would prefer more information.’

  ‘Mason, they say’

  ‘Is that a first or last name?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, it’s unlikely to be his real one.’ It was an overheard snippet, he was fairly sure, with no more depths to explore. ‘Is that it?’

  She nodded.

  ‘OK, get out.’ He pointed at her depositions. ‘I will have these typed up. Anything leads to an arrest, we’ll let you know.’

  The woman got up and crossed to the large double doors, fiddled with the locks for a second, flustered in her haste to be gone from the scene of her connivance with the enemy.

  Mason. Not much. But, as he knew only too well, a name could be a hammer to beat the enemy or a key to unlock further information. He just had to use it well.

  Fourteen

  Marseilles, Summer 1941

  IT WAS ONLY WHEN he walked into the swanky apartment that Harry realised just how filthy he was. Not so grubby as to stand out from the crowds who flocked to railway stations and walked the countryside these days—that would be almost impossible—but among the gilt mirrors and fleur-de-lys wallpapers and silk and brocaded chairs and polished tables, he could smell the days of travel rising off him.

  His hosts, a Belgian and a Scot, were sitting in two of the more padded armchairs, while he paced the rug, going over the story of his trip into the Unoccupied Zone, careful to highlight the dangers and his resourcefulness, although he kept losing the thread. He was beginning to think the drink or two in that bar had been a bad idea.

  ‘Just missed a sweep by a cunt hair,’ he said. ‘But luckily we saw them and hid under a freight truck. When they’d gone we crossed the lines and got on the train. Walked the last five miles.’ He sniffed his armpit. ‘Sorry, must be a bit high.’

  The man on the left, the Belgian, raised an eyebrow at his turn of phrase. His companion nodded and said: ‘We’ll let you get cleaned up soon enough. Sure Lucy won’t begrudge you some soap.’

  ‘Lucy?’

  ‘Owns this place,’ said the Scot. ‘Married to a local. He’s got business in Spain, which can be very handy. You’ll like her—’

  The Belgian coughed to interrupt him. Too much information, he seemed to be saying. Harry was aware that these people were no fools. Being deeply sceptical was going to keep them out of the hands of the Vichy police, and he had no problem with them refusing to give their names or responsibilities.

  For the next half hour, they fired more questions at him about his route and its security and he answered those he felt able to, without giving exact locales and addresses, showing that he, too, knew all about discretion. The Belgian grew frustrated, but the Scot was more understanding. Meanwhile Harry had his eye on the whisky bottle sitting on the mantelpiece, framed by two cut-glass tumblers, clearly lovingly polished each day and just waiting to be filled with the rich, peaty liquor—

  ‘I said, would you mind waiting next door?’ It was the Scot, breaking into his day dream. ‘We have a few things we’d like to discuss in private.’

  Harry nodded and headed off for the bathroom where he ran a long, hot soak, liberally sprinkling in the mysterious Lucy’s bath salts and sliding into the water. He watched with satisfaction as a layer of scum floated off him and disappeared into the froth. He ducked under the water, holding his breath while the dirt dissolved from his hair, surfacing in time to hear a heated argument from next door. It was hard to know who was for or against him. Or, indeed, if it was him they were discussing.

  Harry ran some more hot until the water was lapping over the edge onto a floor so highly polished the drips pooled like mercury. He hopped out, wrapped one of the big fluffy towels around himself and got busy at the sink with Lucy’s husband’s razor, scraping away at the bristles, but leaving himself the beginnings of a moustache, his first since his Wing Commander Gilbert days. A change of look never did any harm.

  He stopped as he heard a third voice, another male, from the adjoining room and laughter this time. He rinsed off, pulled on a robe and went to the door, pressing his ear against it.

  ‘—uniform was fine until we got under the bloody arc lights—began to glow bright green. So near … I had the … bicycle in my hands … surrounded me. Wasn’t just the uni … unGerman bearing they said. Put my damn hands in my pockets. Very Brit … Two weeks in solitary for that one.’

  There was a pause and then the voice became indistinct and then started up again. ‘Ballet Nonsense the show was called.’ He began to sing a particularly awful song, like something from a pantomime. ‘Pat Reid was the lead ballerina … and very fetching he was too’—laughter from the Scot—‘I was the bloody headmaster.’ More guffaws masking the next sentence. ‘Curtain came down and we were off. Bloody Lutyens made me walk like a Jerry for weeks on end, but it paid off. Proper officer bearing this time. And his German, absolutely perfect—he even made an NCO salute him. Two days later, Switzerland.’

  Harry, by now sure of the voice, replaced the towel with a robe and strode into the drawing room, startling Anthony Neave, who almost dropped his pipe to the floor. ‘Bloody hell. I …’ Neave looked at the Belgian. ‘But I know
this man. Helped me at Calais.’

  Harry held out his hand. ‘Neave. Sorry you didn’t make it from the burial detail at Calais.’

  Neave shook his head. ‘Not your fault. Good effort.’

  ‘He did make it out of a place called Colditz. Our first home run,’ said the Scot proudly. ‘All we have to do is get him to Gib, then Lisbon and home.’

  ‘Top hole,’ said Harry and before they could stop him he took three paces to the whisky, unscrewed the cap, and poured two big slugs. ‘You deserve a drink, old man. Bit of a toast.’

  ‘I don’t think you ought—’ began the Scot.

  ‘What the fucking hell are you doing?’

  Harry froze with one glass halfway to his lips and another halfway to Neave. Each man in the room stood still, the woman’s American accent having sliced through the air like a blade. She pointed a long, red-tipped finger: ‘Pat. I let you use the apartment and you turn it into some faggot’s bordello.’

  Harry looked down at himself, wrapped in her robe, drink in hand. The woman was about thirty, tall, blonde, with a husky smoker’s voice and languid eyes that, under other circumstances, might have stirred an interest in Harry. As it was, the scowl on her face pretty much negated that. Under one arm was a small bundle of fur he guessed was a dog.

  ‘Is that my whisky, fella? Is that my fucking whisky?’

  She came across at a fair lick, despite the tight skirt of her suit, grabbed one of the glasses and tossed the drink into Harry’s face. He gasped as the scotch stung his eyes.

  ‘I say—’ began Neave.

  ‘I was saving that for Liberation Day. You knew that, Ian.’ The Scot looked down at the carpet, as if studying the thread count. Lucy gave a huge sigh and poked Harry in the chest. ‘Get out of my robe and out of my place.’

  Harry raised both hands in surrender, hoping she wouldn’t notice one of them still held a glass, but, after placing the dog on the floor, she took that, too, and sloppily poured it back into the bottle.

  The Belgian got up and said, ‘Lucy, I’m really sorry.’ He glowered at Harry as he spoke.