Staying Alive

by Alexander Fullerton

  There was a pause before he added, ‘In exchange, you might say they’d allow your sister to retain her hands, or whatever other body parts might come into it if you failed to comply.’

  ‘It’s unbelievable.’

  ‘Believe it, all the same. And then consider this. Having discussed it with my superiors, I’m authorised to propose an entirely different course for us to follow. For your full and active cooperation, we’d offer you your own continued freedom, and the very early release of your sister. When you’ve delivered the goods and it’s all wound up – well, there’d have to be a time-limit, a deadline, obviously – think of it, Voreux – continued freedom and conceivably further employment with us – in Abwehr undercover operations, I mean. Maybe for your sister too, if she was open to it – and fit enough, of course…’

  ‘Are you so sure you’d be able to get her away from – those—’

  ‘My superiors at a much higher level would have that competence.’

  Staring at him. Having been told they’d sometimes offer this kind of deal, money and so forth, get whatever they wanted then send you to be killed.

  Time, though. Gaining time. Then if the feluccas were still coming…

  He’d sworn to Denise that he’d never leave France without her – if she could get to him, be got to him… Feluccas weren’t the only way out, by any means.

  It was La Geste who’d got her, but if high-level Abwehr influence could be brought to bear, and meanwhile—

  Play for time. Nothing to gain any other way.

  13

  On the Wednesday by mid-morning, 25th this was, she was on her bike pedalling out of Toulouse north-eastward, out through St-Jean on the road for Sulpice. Not St-Sulpice-sur-Lèze near Montgazin where Loubert hung out – and Jake would be today, with Déclan – but plain St-Sulpice which was on the road for Gaillac and beyond that Albi where old Wiggy had come to grief. Albi had caught her eye on Berthe’s map when Jake had been pointing out the highish, wooded area he’d been suggesting she might use tonight and maybe again on Friday – on which she’d decide for herself later, not being all that keen on gracing the same district twice in a row. In this instance it was only thinkable because there was a lot of forestry out that way, so that Friday’s choice of location could be a long way from tonight’s.

  Wouldn’t be going anywhere near Albi anyway. Not that there was any logic in running scared of a place just because it had seen the end of one’s predecessor. Could have happened anywhere, if they’d been on to him somehow, as one might guess they had. He might have used that area once too often; or told someone he trusted that was where he’d be. Someone helping with the research he’d expected to be doing in Albi that next morning, maybe.

  Some girl, perhaps. None of the others seemed to know much about his private life.

  Anyway, Jake’s forefinger-tip following this road – this one – yesterday on Berthe’s map had forked left at St-Sulpice – thirty kilometres out of Toulouse – and continued effectively due north from there, through Salvagnac, Puycelci…

  ‘Seventy-five, eighty kilometres – a hundred even, by the time you’ve found a spot that suits you – nothing to the “old pins”, eh?’

  ‘As long as I don’t have to do it again on Thursday, making it four days running.’

  ‘Not likely, Suzie.’

  ‘But possible?’

  Point being that after Jake’s consultations with Déclan, Loubert and whoever else, he might have stuff to be sent out tomorrow. Info for instance for the commando team and/or felucca skippers which it would still be possible to get to them at Gib preferably but otherwise at sea. And Marc’s, especially any update on the beach situation when Jake saw him tomorrow. That might have to go out on Friday – in daylight even, if it was really urgent. Tonight she had nothing to transmit, and the same might apply tomorrow, but she’d still have to be listening-out on Friday and Saturday – Hardball confirmation on 27th and 28th, they’d said.

  Surprising, when one came to think of it, that when SOE had recruited her – graciously permitted her to enrol as a field agent, having turned her down with a paternal pat on the head a couple of days earlier – the one question they hadn’t thought of asking was whether she had strong legs. Which one bloody well did need, on this job. Pedalling pretty well full-tilt with them now, overtaking most other cyclists, all the horse-drawn traffic of course and even some of the slower gazos. Should make it easily enough into the forested area by early evening – unless she was held up somewhere or other – but wanted as much time as possible for prospecting around before the light went; and by Sulpice she’d have covered only about a third of the distance. This part of it was pretty well all flat, too, which later on it wouldn’t be, so make the most of it. Fairly flying – even at risk of making oneself conspicuous – bat out of hell being the phrase one might have used, but looking perhaps more like a speeding hedgehog – in her shabby overcoat and headscarf, tatty old suitcase lashed on the carrier with frayed string and a bundle of what you might call iron rations – including soup in a thermos – in the panier. She had the dismantled transceiver and its battery in the suitcase, packed in among various articles of clothing including a sweater which as it was warmer than it had been recently she didn’t need – but would tonight – the overcoat being more than enough, especially after about a dozen kilometres of this. Headscarf if anything too warm, but effective as concealment – and overall effect being that no one in his right mind would look at you more than once.

  Except maybe to wonder where the fire was…

  So ease off a bit. But bear in mind that there were thousands of women and girls on bicycles, all over France, most of them fairly shabby. Reminding oneself that one was only one of thousands did help – not only on the bike, but in pretty well any situation. When you didn’t feel like anything out of the ordinary, you didn’t look it.

  The only thing one really did have to worry about – at checkpoints for instance, if you ran into any – was the transceiver.

  If a searcher happened to recognise any of its component parts. The transmitter key for instance just on its own would be a dead give-away, to anyone but the village idiot.

  Name of that village where the priest, Father Christophe, might know the present whereabouts of one’s late husband’s Aunt Ursule?

  St-Antonin Noble Val was the village. Bit of a mouthful. Berthe happened to know that priest. He would not remember Aunt Ursule, since no such person had ever walked this earth, but if she had and had lived within a dozen kilometres of that village he surely would have. In point of fact no one was going to ask him, it was only something Suzette Treniard could go on about if she needed to identify herself and explain what she was doing so far from home. Home being Toulouse – having recently moved there from Paris – all that stuff, including down with the filthy British – and having hopes of a job as a trainee teacher in a nursery school. She had the schools name now and that of its headmistress. Berthe had said yesterday, ‘She does know of you and your ambitions, but there’s not much chance of a vacancy in anything like the near future, I’m sorry to say.’ Rosie had shrugged that off with ‘Just being cautious, isn’t she. I’m an optimist, I’m counting on it.’

  * * *

  Old Rosie told me, in the Café des Beaux Arts – we’d had a leisurely stroll around the town, but it had begun drizzling again – ‘I never actually had to trot out all that stuff. Had it ready, must have rehearsed it to myself a hundred times, but I simply wasn’t ever asked for it. Actually not all that surprising – as I was saying, one tended to feel vulnerable, but looking at it from a gendarme’s or say Funkabwehr’s angle – well, city’s full of people, crowded roads, pavements and cafés, unless someone does something staggeringly stupid why pick on her? If one can just look and sound like one’s part of it all—’

  ‘Dressed like Charlie’s aunt on a bicycle licking along at fifty or sixty kph—’

  She smiled. ‘Slight exaggeration.’

  ‘Let’s
get back to that. Except that if nothing untoward did happen – you were speeding towards St-Sulpice—’

  ‘One thing potentially untoward did happen. About – I suppose halfway between here and St-Sulpice I found I was bashing along through an edge of woodland. Rising ground on my left, and thickish woodland. Now, it’s probably all redbrick bungalows, factories, supermarchés – there’s a multi-lane highway of course, wherever you go you find those, don’t you—’

  ‘But you’d have been on something like a route nationale through open countryside – well, forest – what was “untoward” about it?’

  ‘I think I’d have to look that word up in a dictionary. How about “not so good”?’

  ‘Near enough. Dictionary’d more likely give you “unlucky” or “unfortunate”.’

  ‘Both of those. Although as it turned out – well, thing was, I’d been worrying about having to bike myself into a frazzle maybe three or four days in a row, and here was this high ground and good cover only about a fifth of the distance out of town that I’d settled on for that night’s performance. This being Wednesday – which I’d continue with as planned, the next night I might have “off” – free, depending on developments and his nibs – while on the Friday and Saturday I’d no option, had to be listening-out no matter what.’

  ‘As you were saying.’

  ‘I’m summing it up for you, damn it, making sure you—’

  ‘Sorry, but—’

  ‘I thought I might save this much handier location for use on the Saturday. Would have just about had it, by then, and an easy one for a change would be just the job – as one used to say. Especially with Sunday being H-day for Hardball, so forth.’

  ‘OK. So carried on as planned, found a good place for listening-out that night’—

  ‘Yes. And same Thursday. I mean Friday. Thursday, had the luxury of staying home, Berthe and I made ourselves a good supper and then had an early night. Bliss, it must have been. Friday then was a regular listening-out night but I had to transmit as well, Marc having told Jake that there were now two patrol boats based in Port Vendres and dumps of barbed wire at intervals of a few hundred metres all along the beaches. Truck-loads of it were being brought up every day apparently. Obviously Baker Street and the Hardball team had to be tipped off, but Jake wasn’t as worried as he might have been; for one thing, he said, commandos on a job like this would be equipped with wire-cutters – and so could we be, Déclan could see to that – and for another, with only two days to go and the wire not actually strung up, needing some kind of posts, probably metal things that’d be half-buried in the shingle, we had the Boches you might say pipped at the post as far as Sunday night was concerned. But – this incidentally must have been the first I’d heard of it – there was to be a pick-up by felucca a few days later, and of course by that time they might have the whole coastline wired off – and then they’d be likely to patrol it as well, he thought. Not so bright an outlook. Dear old Jake, though – no panic stations, ever, worked a thing like that out and then stuck with it – for the Sunday night, that was it, no loss of sleep or resolution – inform Baker Street, natch, mentioning the likelihood of there being wire all over the beaches by early next week, but otherwise – no sweat.’

  ‘So on the Friday—’

  ‘Hang on. While I think of it. Another thing Marc had told Jake was he’d thought it over and decided not to keep his appointment with Gabrielle’s husband. Which removed that slight anxiety.’

  ‘Did Jake ask him why he’d ever contemplated such a thing?’

  ‘Yes, he did, but… Hang on, see if I can get it straight. Yes. First of all he had reason to believe that Vérisoin wasn’t as pro-Vichy as Gabi had made out. That had been her way of disassociating him from whatever she might get up to. Shielding him, you might say, socially and politically. So, he thought there was a good enough chance he’d be in sympathy at any rate to some degree with his own nefarious activities – the escape-line and so forth – and he was worried for his sister, because he’d told Gabi about her and was losing sleep over it – whether under Gestapo ministrations Gabi might drop her in it.’ A shrug. ‘If that adds up.’

  ‘Can’t really see what Vérisoin could have done about it. But Marc must have had something in mind. Or – your thought this, wasn’t it, and distinctly possible – if he was really gone on Gabi, floundering? The fact he’d dropped the idea rather suggests – confusion, doesn’t it… Anyway, Rosie – same bike-ride on the Friday, listening-out and telling Baker Street about the wire?’

  ‘Yes. I settled for a spot maybe thirty or forty kilometres from Wednesday’s, and still felt edgy about it. Same general area, they might have had a van patrolling on the off-chance of a repetition. But I sent my stuff out and took in Baker Street’s, which when I’d got back and with Jake’s help decyphered it turned out to be confirmation that the landing was to be on Canet-Plage, approx two hours after nautical twilight – which Jake interpreted as meaning about nine-thirty – and any amendment to this to be radio’d the next night.’

  ‘Saturday. Lucky you.’

  ‘Nothing new in it – I mean that I had to listen-out 27th and 28th. But that screed wound up with another of old Buck’s morale-builders, like the one when he’d told us the church-bells had been ringing for Alamein. This was the French fleet having scuttled itself in harbour at Toulon. It was to be reported on the BBC’s French-language news bulletin in the morning – so listen-out, boys and girls! They had, of course – listened-out – at least Berthe had. It was about midday by the time I was with them, the bulletin had come over at seven, so they told me about it.’

  ‘I’d forgotten all about that. They scuttled the ships we hadn’t accounted for at Mers-el-Kebir, didn’t they?’

  ‘Oran, yes. Where my alleged husband Paul got his. But it was a dramatic event, all right. Brought on, obviously, by the Boches having invaded the south. They’d have seen that fleet as up for grabs – including a modern battleship and a couple of battle-cruisers. Balance of naval power would have been affected very seriously, and now it wouldn’t. French captains had stayed on their bridges, gone down with tricolores flying, oil installations and ammunition stores in the naval dockyard had been blown up – you know, you could really take your hat off to the old Frog marin. And with the BBC report there’d been a stirring oration from de Gaulle. Berthe had wept, she told me – half the people in the streets had been in tears apparently. Jake had been there with her awaiting my return of course, to get whatever I’d have had from Baker Street – which in fact was only what we’d expected, nothing new or startling. Well – on the face of it I’d have been setting off again pretty soon – to be on the air again by listening-out time, take in the “any adjustment” as promised – pretty shattering prospect really, almost perpetual bloody motion – but in fact I had time for a substantial meal, as I’d prearranged with Berthe – having been on sandwiches, soup and water for the past twenty-four hours – and I was reckoning on a couple of hours’ kip too, asked Berthe to be sure of waking me – don’t know what time, but early afternoon – and Jake expressed surprise – how would I get there before dark, find a good location, etcetera? He was actually quite embarrassed, asking me this, adding something like “I know it’s just about asking the impossible, don’t know how you do it, damn sure I couldn’t—” and I explained I wasn’t going anything like as far as he imagined, only about twenty kilometres. Having found this much nearer patch of forest covering uplands of sorts, which since I’d now used the more distant region twice running would actually be less dangerous – also being so much less of a marathon might even leave me still capable of staggering around under my own power next day – so on, so forth. And that was OK; we agreed we’d meet back there in Place Marengo next day about mid-forenoon or earlier, and that was that.’ She checked the time, and asked me, ‘What would you say to a small cognac?’

  ‘Well.’ Blinking at her… ‘I think I might say to it, “Why do you have to be so small?”’
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  * * *

  Would have been a bit much if she’d had to go all the way back to St-Sulpice and minimally another thirty kilometres north from there. But with this much easier trip in view, and having taken in sustenance as well as a couple of hours’ sleep, she felt pretty well on top of it again. Out through St-Jean, Castelmaurou, and now Garidec: this was the 988, and before long she’d be turning off it into a track of which she’d taken mental/visual note that morning. Checking on the map at Berthe’s since then she’d seen there was a place called Buzet up there, with vineyards around it, and higher, wooded ridges sheltering these lower, vine-bearing slopes from prevailing westerlies, Atlantic winds further cooled by the Pyrenean snows.

  More traffic than there’d been last evening. Both ways, into and out of town. Saturday, of course. Still quite early evening, but the light already less good than it might have been. There was a place called Montastruc-la-Conseillère coming up next, then a hamlet the map didn’t show, and then – up into the woods.

  Actually had cut it a little fine.

  Jake was really splendid, she thought. In all sorts of ways. Well – just generally, the cat’s whiskers. Berthe certainly was nuts about him – had almost given up trying to disguise the fact. Which one could see at times embarrassed him a little – as it would, since the last thing he’d want would be to embarrass her in any way.

  Mind on the job now though – pedalling into Montastruc – into and out of, and really not far to go now – and a grey Citroen Light 15, traction avant as they called it, overtaking actually on the corner, crowding her, and the front-seat passenger – soft hat and moon face was as much as she saw of him, but he was subjecting her to a close inspection as the thing swept by. Bastard. Rosie with her head down and legs pumping, not letting up at all, might almost have been trying to stay with it. As if she didn’t know poison when she saw it.