by A L Berridge
The rope pulled gently in my hands, and I let it pay through slowly. A minute passed, then another. I had to resist the urge to lean out of the window and look up, I just concentrated on staring at the rope and praying it stayed slack. My hands were biting into it so hard the blanket felt like iron. Then it jerked three times, and I let out my breath for what felt like the first time since he’d gone.
I untied the rope from the bed and secured it round my waist. It felt thick and lumpy. Then I went to the window and gave three quick tugs. Slowly the slack started to unwind and disappear till I gave the one jerk for ‘stop.’ Another minute passed, and I pictured the boy tying the rope to something, I was almost doing it with him in my head, making sure he was giving it enough turns, making it really solid. He’d never be able to take my weight on his own, not if I fell suddenly and pulled on it, he needed a secure anchor. I wondered what he’d found.
Three more jerks, and it was my turn. I looked down into the courtyard, and it was still all clear. I backed on to the sill, held the rope firmly and stood up.
It should have been easy. It was only a few feet, the rope was firm, and all those knots just made it more like a ladder, but my back was stiff and painful and I just wasn’t sure I could trust the rope. I kept trying to press my feet into the wall like I was trying to climb up it, but that was pushing my body away from it in a kind of bow, and I felt the great drop swirling below me like a cold draught. Then I saw the roof parapet just above my head, and over it was stretching André’s hand.
‘If the rope starts to go, just grab my hand.’
‘I’ll pull you over.’
‘It’s all right,’ he said dismissively. ‘I’m tied to a lion.’
My mind couldn’t make sense of that. I gripped the rope more firmly, yanked myself up the last bit, whacked one hand over the parapet, then the other, and hauled myself over.
‘What lion?’
He grinned smugly. I looked at the great stone lion he’d wrapped the rope round, then back at the boy, and all at once I took it in. We were standing with solid ground under our feet. I’d made it, we both had, we were safe and out in the open air. I know we were still sort of in the barracks, but it didn’t feel like it, it felt like we were free. All we’d got to do was find a way down.
I ought to explain about that barracks. It was the original Roland home, and really big and impressive. It was stone built with three wings round a courtyard, like a letter E on its side with the middle prong missing. It looked a bit ridiculous in a village, but I guess it was built before the village was, it was certainly old-fashioned enough. The roof was mainly flat but had odd little turrety bits sticking up like a cheap version of the Château de Chambord, and stone carvings all round the parapet. I’d never liked the look of it much, but I just loved it now. It was flat enough to walk on, but with decorative little towers for cover, it was absolutely bloody perfect.
We still didn’t want to stay on it longer than we could help. Anyone who went in our cell was bound to see where we’d gone, I mean the bar was missing from the window and no rope hanging down to the courtyard, even the dimmest guard was going to work it out and send someone after us. We untied the rope, kept to the outside edge away from the courtyard, and set off to look for a way down.
We were on the north wing, the one that used to be Le Soleil Splendide. We looked down into the Square but there was no chance that way, not with the guards at the entrance, let alone the bloody great cordon they’d got across it like we were boar at a hunt. There were people moving about down there all the same, I saw the Pagniés coming out of church and the Auberts going in, clutching candles big as my arm.
‘That’ll be for us,’ whispered André. ‘I’ll bet Père Gérard’s having another prayer vigil.’
I remembered the last one, for M. Gauthier and Pierre Laroque, and how we’d given it a happy ending by taking down the bodies ourselves.
‘We’re going to do it again,’ said André. ‘At this rate they’ll have to make Père Gérard a saint.’
We went to find a less public way down. The obvious place was over the side into the little alley that runs from the mill, but there were guards at each mouth, we could see the moonlight gleaming off the top of their helmets. André said ‘Well, maybe not this way.’
We crept along to the back wing, the long bit of the ‘E’ where a lot of Ancre staff and pensioners used to live. It overlooked the Backs and we hoped we could nip down and escape over the bridge behind the mill. But we couldn’t. There were soldiers all over it, and at their new back gate they were standing two deep. I felt the fear coming back.
We’d hoped to avoid the south wing, because right in the middle was this watchtower the Spaniards had put up, which was supposed to be always manned. André said ‘It’ll be all right, they’re watching for French troops, they’ll be looking over the Wall and outside,’ but I wasn’t so sure. If the guards everywhere else were worrying about us being rescued I bet the men in the watchtower were doing the same.
We stayed near the corner as long as we could, but there was no way down. There were more of those stone lions that would have been perfect for fastening the rope, but the Backs sort of curve round with the buildings, and the patrolling guards couldn’t miss us climbing down. We kept being forced further towards the front, nearer and nearer the watchtower.
It didn’t look that frightening in itself. It was a crap building actually, planks of wood just nailed together and sunk into a kind of cement, you’d think the smallest wind would blow it over. At its base was a wooden passageway like a tunnel and we guessed the entrance must be inside the barracks to stop the soldiers getting wet when it rained. There was a door at the base of the tower too, a widening dark line all round it, then a sudden loud creak made us jump in alarm as we realized it was opening.
We dropped behind the last turret, my mind blanking out in panic, I didn’t dare even look. There were footsteps hard on the stone, but it sounded like only one man, and a few seconds later I heard a familiar gushing sound, then a long sigh. There was a rustle of clothing, the footsteps walked away from us, then the door shut with a loud bang.
The roof was empty again, but the panic didn’t leave me. I’d felt stupidly safe up here until now, but that door changed everything. Any moment it could open again and a whole load of soldiers just stream out on to the roof and us with nowhere to run. We took our boots off and actually tiptoed past that watchtower; we went so slowly I almost fell over.
But we made it past and no one shouted, and the door didn’t open, and we were still free. We kept going until we were nearly at the front of the barracks, then it felt safe to breathe again. We put on our boots, crept to the edge of the parapet and peered over.
The Backs had finished by now, we were into the row of buildings that fronted the Square. We were looking down on something that looked oddly familiar, an enclosed yard and a stone building with a flat roof and huge chimney, and then my mind swam back into some kind of sense and I pictured exactly what I’d be looking at if I were standing in the Square like a normal person, not creeping around roofs like a bird.
We were looking down on the roof of the Forge.
Colin Lefebvre
First I knew was a soft thump on the roof. I said to my dad ‘What’s that?’, then a few seconds later there’s another. This is, what, coming up three in the morning, a man’s bound to think the worst. I said to my dad ‘There’s someone on the roof.’
I was out of bed and into the back yard, my dad fast behind me, and there’s a man by our back door, and another sliding off our roof right in front of me. I grabbed the first, whirled him round to give him a good smack, then he said ‘Hullo, Col,’ just like that, ‘Hullo Col,’ and it was old Jacques himself, wasn’t in prison being tortured at all, he was standing in front of me in our own back yard. Then the other straightened up and it was the Seigneur. Took me a second, since you ask, hair all lopped off, looked like something off the street in Abbeville, but it was him
all right, and when he said ‘Hello, Colin, sorry to trouble you,’ well, there was no mistaking it.
He was quick, my dad, knew there were soldiers about, Backs were heaving with them. Seized them both by the shoulders, Seigneur or not, bustled them inside, and shut the door. Simone and my mum started squeaking in panic, but my dad told them to shut their noise, then lit a candle, and there we all were, gawping at each other like village idiots in a play.
Seigneur seemed unhurt apart from the hair, but poor Jacques looked in a right old state, dressing on his face, shirt ripped and bloody, hands torn and scratched. Something wrong in his face too, something missing. Looked like the same old Jacques, sounded like him too, but I caught myself wondering if he’d really died in that barracks and what we’d got here was his ghost. You hear stories about things like that, don’t you? You hear things.
My mum was worried too. All for getting them in bed right away, she was saying ‘You’re safe now, you can stay here, you’re safe.’ But no, Seigneur said they weren’t, on account of there being a ruddy great rope hanging down from the barracks right on to our roof, be a bit of a giveaway in daylight. He said to report it ourselves just before dawn so the Spaniards didn’t go suspecting us, but him and Jacques, they’d got to go on.
Easier said than done, in my opinion, on account of them soldiers in the Square. Man might stroll through in a crowd in daylight, but this time of the morning was another matter.
My dad laughed suddenly. ‘No, Col,’ he said, ‘not this night. This night the curé’s given us the perfect excuse.’
He turned to Simone and said ‘Here, girl, get your frock on. We’re going to church.’
Jacques Gilbert
Colin lent me his coat, we squashed my hair up under his hat, and M. Lefebvre thought I’d pass. Colin was bulkier than me, but if I kept my head down and stuck my chest out I’d look vaguely right, and it’d be dark after all. It was harder with André, but M. Lefebvre sneaked next door to borrow the youngest Poulain’s red coat, and with a hat over his hair he looked fine. It was the coat was the thing. If I’d seen that red shape anywhere I’d have said to myself ‘There’s Edouard’s brother,’ and thought no more about it. I guessed the Spaniards would think even less. So we scavenged round the house for candles, brandished them sort of ostentatiously in our hands, said goodbye to Colin, and stepped out into the Square. Simone was on one side of us, Madame on the other, and M. Lefebvre in front.
I kept my head well down, so I didn’t see much except cobbles, but I sort of sensed the soldiers off to our left by the barracks doors, they were murmuring and laughing together in a kind of low growl. I was startled when a voice came from in front of us, but then guessed that was the cordon we’d seen, the soldiers blocking the Square.
‘Not like you, Lefebvre,’ said the voice. ‘Praying for the little Sieur?’
M. Lefebvre sounded a bit embarrassed. He muttered something about it being good for business to be seen at the vigil. ‘Good will of the community, you know, important in a village.’
The soldier laughed. I could see his legs ahead of me, and the gleam of a musket butt on the cobbles. ‘Don’t forget the good will of the Colonel.’
‘Not likely,’ said M. Lefebvre, laughing in a forced kind of way. He walked on quickly, me right behind him and the boy tense beside me. St Sebastian’s was clear ahead of us, I’d have given anything just to run, but we had to keep walking sedately in case the soldiers were watching.
The church clock was striking three as we walked through the west door. The smell of the incense took me back to the last time I’d been here, the sound of the Te Deum, and my Father watching me with that almost kind look on his face. Everything else was different. The church was full of candles, little yellow pools of light in the darkness. I could hear people rustling and creaking in their seats, and someone was coughing on the other side. Père Gérard was praying at the altar in his soothing monotone, then the words jumped out at me as he said ‘André de Roland et Jacques Gilbert, salva eos, Domine’ and I really took it in who it was they were all praying for. I wondered if they’d been doing it when we climbed out that window, and if it had made a difference.
There was a wicked gleam in André’s eye, and I knew he was tempted just to tap Père Gérard’s arm and say ‘Here we are,’ but the curé would only have gone ringing joybells or something, then we’d have been stuffed and the Lefebvres along with us. So we shuffled towards the north end and let the Lefebvres get seated, then we thanked them in whispers and legged it for the door. We were out into the graveyard and running for the back gate, then we were through it and in the woods and we’d done it, we were really free. We looked at each other, then he said ‘Bloody hell, Jacques, I don’t think I’ve ever been that scared in my life.’
We stopped at the Home Farm to borrow horses and got back to base before dawn. André warned me we’d find half Dax there because of not knowing if we’d talk, but actually it seemed practically empty. Pepin was on the roof, but he didn’t even look at us, he was too busy staring out into the dark for the outguards’ signals saying the Spaniards were coming. It all felt a bit unwelcoming.
We went in. It was dark with only a couple of candles lit, but we could see at once there wasn’t much happening. Bettremieu was sleeping in a huge mound near the door, Bernard was lurking in a corner looking miserable, Dom was playing dice with himself, and Jean-Marie was curled up by our food basket like a protective dog. Marcel was asleep up the platform end, but Stefan was sat up playing with his knife, balancing it on its tip and catching it as it fell. It felt like he’d been doing it a long time.
Then he looked up and saw us.
His hand stilled on the knife, and it poised for a second before dropping to the floor with a clatter. There was a sudden squawk from Bernard, and all at once a great rustle of straw as everyone sat up and stared. I think I’d expected them to come rushing up and hugging us, but they didn’t, they stood very slowly without taking their eyes off us, like we were something in a dream. Jean-Marie said in a hushed voice ‘I told you so, I said they’d come back,’ like we weren’t even there to hear him.
The boards creaked as Stefan stepped off the platform and walked towards us, that slow smile growing as he came. I thought he’d embrace André, but he didn’t, he turned to me first and laid his hand gently round my arm. He said ‘All right?’ and when I nodded dumbly he squeezed my arm and let it go. Then he turned to the boy.
‘You, you little bastard,’ he said. ‘You.’
André smiled at him and dug something out of his pocket. ‘I’ve brought back your sleeve-knife.’
‘Have you?’ Stefan’s smile finally made it into a great grin, and he grabbed the boy and squashed him flat against his chest. Then they were all at it, just the way I’d thought, they were piling on top of us and embracing every bit they could get hold of, even Bernard was patting us in a timid kind of way, and it was all right, it was all right, we were home.
Stefan Ravel
It was André all right, talking and laughing as if his being here alive and free was only what anyone would expect, and no kind of miracle at all. He even seemed mildly surprised when we sent Dom galloping into Dax to stop the evacuation, as if we ought to have had faith in him all along. Well, I don’t know, Abbé, maybe I should have, but I watched him drinking back a whole mug of cider in one breath, and saw the way his hand trembled when he put it down, and I wasn’t so sure he’d had all that much faith himself. Poor kid. It’s one of the few things you can’t mistake in this world, the look of a man who’s been tortured.
Jacques looked in even worse case. His back was half shredded, and he’d an impressive little scar coming under his bandage, but I was more worried about the damage done inside. He’d a dead look about him I didn’t like at all, and I wondered if André had told him about his father. He insisted he hadn’t, he said Jacques wasn’t in any state to hear the truth just yet, and I’m bound to say I agreed. It wasn’t going to be nice hearing for a
nyone, especially if he started to think through the implications of who might have betrayed us last winter. So I slapped ointment on the visible injuries, packed the pair of them off to bed like children, and decided we’d keep our secret a little longer.
Oh, be reasonable. How could I have known the stable boy was keeping a secret or two of his own?
Jacques Gilbert
I had to wait till André was asleep.
He went on talking a while, telling me all the stuff there hadn’t been time for, like what happened at the Château, and what he’d said to Anne on the gabelle road, and what she’d said to him, and what a fool he’d made of himself. I asked if he’d kissed her, and he got all huffy and dignified so I knew he had.
Then he rolled over to face me and said ‘There’s something else.’ He sounded suddenly very serious.
I looked at him warily. He’d never asked how I’d got caught, and I didn’t want him to, I didn’t want him knowing anything about that. But he only screwed up his face and said ‘That night the Spaniards came. That man, the officer, you remember?’
I wrenched my mind back, and did. The enseigne who’d made him watch.
He said ‘I killed him last night.’
I couldn’t take that in, it was too big. I said stupidly ‘What?’
He nodded. ‘I didn’t think I’d recognize him. I’ve never been able to picture his face, not even in my dreams, there was just the dark and the hat, and the whiteness of his teeth as he laughed. Then last night I saw him, and it could never have been anyone else. I was remembering the Manor anyway, and then to see him with Anne …’
I must have made some sort of movement, because he grasped my arm and said ‘It’s all right, we were in time. But another five minutes and …’
If he’d listened to me and waited for Marcel. I didn’t want to take that in either, I was beginning to think I’d been wrong about just about everything in my whole life. I said feebly ‘But she’s all right?’