Staying Alive

by Alexander Fullerton

  * * *

  Old Rosie had told me, ‘There was a funny little incident at the station that I remember. Gare Matabiau – Jake had parked the Jorisse car there. Big old thing – blue-black and sort of bulbous as I remember it – how those old limos used to look? Very roomy – our cases went on the floor in the back, and my bike the whole width of the rear seat – boot of course being reserved for charcoal. Well – Jake had parked it with its front against the pavement along this side of the station building – cars all along it – and there was a gendarme watching us from the shelter of a doorway right in front of us. It was raining, incidentally. Anyway – young gendarme in kepi and cloak, and as I see him now – well, as it happens he was watching me, mostly. People milling around, other cars coming and going, and this cove just – anyway, Jake outside the car, shoving the bike in, me inside at the other side, pulling and sort of keeping it straight, you know. Then – we’re out, rear doors shut, getting in up front on our respective sides – and blow me down, gendarme still goofing at me – me naturally and properly ignoring him, but Jake at that stage losing his rag – one hand on top of the open driver’s-side door, challenging him with ‘Ça va, huh?’

  Imagining, visualising it… Gendarme staring at him now – calm, maybe slightly poe-faced, but after a few seconds giving him a nod, calling back ‘Va bien, merci.’ Gallic shrug then, and ‘Va assez bien, alors’ before looking back at me, and Jake – inside by this time, pulling the door shut, saying loudly and sarcastically, in English, ‘That’s good. I’m so glad.’ He was fumbling a bit, getting the car into reverse, Rosie at that moment looking up and seeing a trio of uniformed Germans emerging from that doorway and gazing around as if they’d expected to be met – or didn’t like being rained on, were pulling back out of it – Jake catching sight of them too and exclaiming, ‘Bloody Luftwaffe…’ Those three meanwhile crowding around our gendarme, wanting information of some kind but addressing him she guessed either in German or incomprehensible French – gendarme open-mouthed, eyebrows hooped, hands up as if in self-defence… Then they were going back inside and he’d caught her eye again – eloquently this time, expression and gesture asking ‘What price that bunch, then?’

  She was laughing. Jake had the car round, ready to go. She said, ‘Not exactly pro-Boche that one.’

  Car into gear, and revving a little. He wasn’t used to it yet. Glancing at her: ‘Pro you, though.’ A nod, and another glance, accusatory: ‘Come to think of it, not unlike that pair the other day.’

  ‘Oh, Jake…’

  ‘Jean.’

  ‘Damn it, sorry…’

  ‘First Luftwaffe I’ve seen here. No doubt taking over the airfield. Might inconvenience us a little. Felucca operations, for instance.’

  Out of the station and over the canal, then left, heading south. It was a comfortable, softly-sprung old car, but its windscreen wipers squeaked atrociously. He pointed ahead: ‘The 113, we want. Castelnaudary, Carcassonne, Narbonne, then down-coast. Couple of hundred kilometres, bit more. Want to catch up on some kip, Suzie, go ahead, I’ll keep quiet. Sorry about the wipers.’

  * * *

  When she woke it was dark and they were in or near Narbonne, switching from the 113 to the road down-coast for Perpignan and the Spanish border. She’d slept for about four hours, wipers or no wipers; it hadn’t rained all the time apparently, although it had started again now, which was probably what had woken her.

  Jake – Jean – told her, ‘Something like sixty kilometres to go. An hour, say. Why not go back to sleep?’

  ‘No, I’m OK. Give you a spell, if you like.’

  ‘Thanks, but all the same—’

  ‘If you’re sure. Safer, at that. But Jean, if we were stopped and questioned, where would I be expecting to spend the night?’

  ‘Might say you were leaving it to me. And I might have said I was hoping we might get into l’Hôtel du Centre. That’s in Perpignan – best not to mention Canet-Plage. I might also have said I’d take you to dine at the Valencia – swanky place, expensive, very good grub.’

  ‘Idea being to seduce me, or something?’

  ‘Whoever was asking the questions might guess at something of that sort. But in fact, we’re expected at l’Hôtel du Tennis – at Canet-Plage. Ropy old dump right on the sea, proprietress Madame Quétin. She and Marc Voreux are particularly good friends.’

  ‘What sort of age?’

  ‘Oh, forty, forty-five? Marc used the place quite a bit in his escape-line work. And she has nieces who work for her. It’s a natural rendezvous for the local fishermen as well as weekenders and so forth.’ He’d jerked the wheel over, avoiding a camionette showing no lights and hugging the middle of the road. ‘Idiot…’

  ‘They’ll have room for us all, will they?’

  ‘Only you and I’ll need rooms, and I’ve booked them. Déclan will want to be off with his lot the minute they land, and Marc with his three won’t hang around. He won’t be expecting you or Déclan, incidentally. I only briefed him when I saw him on – oh, Thursday – and he doesn’t know about the Hardball element.’

  ‘Commandos arriving, you mean.’

  ‘Doesn’t affect him, does it. As it happens, there’s something else he may not know about as yet. Remember he’d made an appointment to see the girl’s husband – Vérisoin?’

  ‘And then decided to drop it.’

  ‘Could be just as well he did. Jacques told me this – Gestapo have arrested Vérisoin, it seems. Vanished just like his wife did, and they’ve been turning his three offices and the house inside-out, apparently. Supposition is they got enough out of her to haul him in too.’

  Pausing: shifting gear for a sharpish bend in the narrow road…

  ‘Despite his connections, Chef des Compagnons, etcetera. Jacques says he’s actually quite a decent fellow. They belong to the same club; he doesn’t claim to know him all that well, but—’

  ‘Gabrielle’s really been through it, then.’

  ‘One would imagine so.’ A shrug in the dark beside her.

  ‘Would have been, wouldn’t she.’

  ‘What’ll be happening with the children, I wonder… But Marc had made an appointment. He told me so – on Monday. And if it was in an appointment book in one of the offices they’ve been searching—’

  ‘Quite likely to have been just verbal – don’t you think? Subject of Gabrielle, private and extremely personal?’

  ‘Well. Maybe. Poor, poor Gabrielle… Otherwise I suppose he might tell them he was seeking professional advice on some legal matter – lobster business?’

  ‘I’ll tip him off, anyway.’

  * * *

  It took more than an hour, became especially slow-going on minor roads around the back of Perpignan and the last few kilometres out to Canet-Plage, some of it on unpaved roads. Continuing rain and the car’s weak lights didn’t help. It was getting on for eight-thirty when Jake told her, ‘Believe it or not, we’re here.’

  Tall old building, and a scattering of shingle on the road itself. Turning off it on to an asphalted, weedy area – might once have been a tennis court? She wondered – with a few vehicles parked randomly here and there. Then she was upright, nodding through wet glass and rain-streaked darkness to a light-coloured shape close to a porch with a glow of light inside it. ‘Our poissonnier, Jean?’

  ‘Looks like it.’ In first gear, scrunching up and stopping beside it: Rosie meanwhile looking for Déclan’s truck and not finding it. Jake had added, ‘To him, this is a home from home, he may have been here all day.’

  ‘On account of the nieces?’

  ‘They certainly wouldn’t spoil it for him, but the main thing is it’s used by fishermen.’ He’d stopped, switched off, checking the time before he cut the lights. ‘Half-eight. An hour to go if they’re on time. Which in this they may well not be. Hope to God they are, though. Suzie, we’ll risk leaving your bike where it is, OK?’

  ‘OK. You must be whacked now.’

  ‘Moderately.
But look, I’ll bring the bags, you run for it – side-door where the light is, right?’

  The rain was less heavy than she’d expected – and not all that much wind, although the sea was noisy. The door opened to a sharp pull, and she was in a lobby with a wet floor, narrow flight of stairs leading up to her right, a reception counter of sorts and in the wall facing her, swing doors with brass handles. Smell of cooking-oil and damp, and on the walls several heads of horned animals. She was holding the door for Jake who was blundering in behind her with the cases, but behind him Marc Voreux, looking wet and dirty in his old French army coat, shouting ‘Jean, hello!’

  Jake had dumped the cases and clanged a brass bell – ship’s bell – that hung over the counter. ‘Heck you sprung from, Marc?’ The answer being that he’d been out there refuelling his van, then inside it squaring things off to have it tidy before his passengers arrived, had seen what looked like a hearse drive in and waited to see who or what it was.

  ‘And lo and behold, Suzette!’

  ‘Hello, Marc.’

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you here.’

  ‘I didn’t either, until pretty well the last minute.’

  ‘Jean and his little surprises, huh?’

  Forced laughter, she thought: actually not much liking the surprise.

  Jake was greeting a gaunt, dark woman who had to be the proprietress. Nearer fifty than forty, Rosie thought – explaining to Marc that there’d be a message to send tomorrow, also she had radio equipment arriving in the boat with his BCRA people, and she’d needed to be here to make sure of getting it. Then, Madame Quétin – Jake introducing them to each other and Madame taking one of Rosie’s hands in both of hers, murmuring, ‘Ah, charmante, charmante, how lovely for you, Jean…’

  * * *

  Old Rosie looked thoughtfully at her empty brandy glass.

  ‘Might, I suppose. But let’s make them small ones this time?’

  ‘OK.’ A friendly waiter had his eye on us already, smiled as he came over. I told him, ‘Singles.’ Rosie continuing, ‘Damn cheek, of course, but if that was what the woman wanted to think – well, who cared. The alternative being some tale about a missing aunt-in-law, hardly relevant to the circumstances. Bloody Marc though making the same assumption was something else – pretending to be surprised – helping with the baggage – that we were using two rooms. We were in the room they were giving me – he’d dumped my case on the bed, I’d cut up rough and he was apologising – in a flippant sort of way, only joking, etc. – when Jake appeared, asking was the room OK and telling Marc he wanted a word with him.

  ‘We don’t have a lot of time. Lanterns need to be set – do that while we’re talking – and Alain will be here any minute—’

  ‘Him too?’

  ‘Yes.’ Telling me then, ‘Suzie – dining-room’s on the ground floor through those double doors and to your left. Madame Quétin recommends the fish pie, and the sooner we get at it the better. Give me and Marc ten minutes?’

  * * *

  In the Café des Beaux Arts, I touched her glass with mine. ‘Santé, Rosie. Good fish pie, was it?’

  ‘I dare say. We weren’t too fussy in those days. Just hungry. But we were in a good place for fish, after all. Anyway – as far as pushing this story along is concerned – we were at supper when Déclan turned up – which made for a pleasant reunion from my point of view, but Marc seemed rather subdued – had done since his talk with Jake and still was; while telling Déclan how good it was to see him again, he was – well, preoccupied. Jake would have told him about Charles-Henri being arrested, the chance of a note of his appointment with him being found – and virtual certainty that Gabrielle had been given a hard time. And that if she’d let her husband down – as it seemed she might have, poor creature – would also have divulged anything she might have had on him – if they’d had any reason to ask about him, of course. All of which would be – to say the least, depressing. But Gabi anyway, the hell she’d have been through: one might assume, the Gestapo’s foul and terrifying utmost, best not dwelt on. Also, Jake would have told him about the commandos arriving and Déclan looking after them, obviously all of this to do with Hardball and he, Marc, being kept out on the sidelines. I thought I knew him well enough to guess that none of this would exactly thrill him. All right, Jake would surely have pointed out to him that he hadn’t needed to know – just as Déclan for instance would be surprised to see him there, hadn’t known anything about BCRA arrivals – or even that I’d be there – so what was his beef?

  ‘Well – Gabi Vérisoin, you’d hardly have expected him to be happy. Unlike Déclan, whom I’d really come to admire, first in the course of our parachutage outing and more recently in respect of the Hardball complications he’d been handling – Déclan as always imperturbable, in his own way somewhat Jake-like, was shovelling the fish pie down at an enormous rate – having brought his truck at least as far as Jake and I had come, and having yet to refuel it and whatever else might need doing to it before setting off with the commandos in not much more than about half an hour now – if they were on time. A big “if”, that, a heck of a lot riding on it. Well – obviously – the distance Alain had to cover before daylight as the most obvious concern, but by no means only a matter of time and distance; there was also the very real chance of running into road-blocks or mobile patrols – chances increasing in direct proportion to distance covered – uh?’ She spread her small hands: ‘I knew, I’d been there!’

  ‘And one stroke of that kind of luck liable to blow the whole thing.’ I sipped cognac. ‘One way and another, Rosie, this was a particularly chancy operation, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. It was.’ Twiddling her glass. ‘My first, though, so one took it all more or less for granted – you know, simply what was expected of one, what the job was about. That and knowing that Déclan was extremely competent. While Jake – well, he was aware that orders for Hardball had emanated virtually from God – orders to SOE to set it up, that is – anyway from something like War Cabinet level. He’d had that from the Chef de Réseau in the Pau region who’d had the brief originally and transferred it to us – Countryman – on Baker Street’s orders when von Schleben and company were moved from Gurs to Noé.’

  ‘And for all anyone could have foretold might well have been moved on to Germany by this time. Taking that chance too.’

  ‘I gathered – either from Jake or in London half a lifetime later – due to Berlin’s own comparative disinterest. It was mainly Jews who were being railed east from Noé, and even with them one gathers the Boches seemed less interested in taking them in than Vichy was in shipping them out. Laval and that shit Bousquet being the prime movers in that area, and they’d probably little or no idea of any particular importance attaching to a handful of anti-Nazis – former anti-Nazis, even.’

  ‘You’re saying that until they actually had them back and interrogated them—’

  ‘Even identified them, looked into their histories – von Schleben’s anyway—’

  ‘London – SIS maybe – was a jump ahead of La Geste or the Abwehr, in fact.’

  ‘Might guess so. And were pressing us to bloody well get on with it. Which you and I should be doing now, don’t you think?’

  ‘You’re dead right, Rosie. Sorry. Back to Canet-Plage?’

  * * *

  Jake had suggested to her that she’d get as good a view from an upstairs window as she would from the beach itself, with the advantage of staying dry; he and the other two had to be down there, of course, and he’d make sure of getting hold of the transceivers for her.

  ‘Thanks, Jean, very kind, but I’d sooner be down there with you. Any case, Alain says the rain’s nothing now.’

  ‘Just as you like. Slight chance of running into trouble, mind – Boche or gendarmerie patrol, whatever—’

  ‘In which case who isn’t in trouble?’

  There wasn’t time to go on about it. Déclan had gone to move his truck to some place behind the hotel �
� oh, the cabine, holiday shack they had the use of. He’d refuelled, incidentally, on arrival, before joining them in the hotel for supper etc. – and she’d seen both Jake and Marc checking their handguns – Marc’s Luger, and Jake with a Lama – Spanish-made 9-millimetre similar to a Colt .45 – which did rather emphasise the possibility of trouble, in which being unarmed she of course would be something of a liability to them – anyway, Déclan returned at that moment at a trot, muttering, ‘Sorry, Jean – let’s go?’ Telling her as they started out – Jake going ahead with Marc, talking to him about the pick-up in a few nights’ time, wire etc, permitting – Déclan warning her, ‘Could be a long wait, Suzie.’

  ‘Hope not, for your sake.’

  Meaning the drive he had ahead of him, his need to get on the road double-quick. He had about a hundred and fifty kilometres to cover, to some place near Foix, Jake had mentioned. Taking her arm as they crossed the road – in wet wind, not rain, a lightish but cold south-westerly and the sound of a million tons of shingle shifting around at the water’s edge, she guessed a couple of hundred metres away at least and unlikely to be in sight until they’d crossed at least one ridge piled up by the tide. The shape of the beach varied tremendously, Déclan told her, shouting down at her; a shift of wind and a hard blow for a day or two would change the whole scene.

  ‘But see there now?’

  Holding her arm to turn her, halfway up a slope, turning to look back at the roofline of l’Hôtel du Tennis – at two yellowish lights, attic windows each with what she guessed might be a storm-lantern in it. She remembered Jake saying something about setting lanterns.

  ‘Leading-mark for the launch to come in on. There’s three windows in that roof-space though, if all three was lit it’d mean clear off, stay away. Never had that happen yet – thanks be.’

  ‘But they do patrol the beach?’