The Best of Our Spies

by Alex Gerlis

  ‘Don’t be upset. The people of France are not to blame. You look so guilty! It’s not your fault. You look like a good person to me.’

  Later that night she was sitting in the barn with the doctor and Rachel. The Roma women were in the house, the sound of the folk tune they were humming floating across the farmyard. The Germans were asleep and the four boys were cautiously walking around the farm, their heads looking every direction.

  ‘What happened to your families?’ she asked them.

  There was a long silence. Eventually, the doctor translated her question for Rachel. His translation lasted a long time and then a conversation between the two of them followed.

  ‘We don’t know.’

  More silence.

  ‘No idea at all?’

  Another long pause as the doctor carefully straightened his shirtsleeves.

  ‘When a transport arrived at Auschwitz, people were separated. The old, the young and the sick – they were sent to these gas chambers straight away. People who looked fit and who had a skill, they would be spared, for a time. I was with my wife and my son. When we came off the train, it was chaos. I have no idea what happened. I just don’t think about it. Rachel, she had five children. She has decided in her mind that at least one of them must have survived, but she can hardly bring herself to think about it. Your question was a difficult one for us to answer.’

  ‘How old was your son?’

  ‘Twelve.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I keep telling you, you don’t need to be. You’re not to blame. And what about you? Do you have family?’

  So far, he had not asked where she came from, or where she was going or what she did and she had told them as little as possible. They knew her as Hélène and had no idea that she was a nurse or that she spoke English and some German.

  ‘My mother...’ She could not say much more. Rachel spoke to the doctor, who replied at length.

  ‘She asks about your husband, your baby’s father. Where is he, is he alive?’

  She gazed through the open door of the barn where the moon had lit up the farmyard, casting a silvery glow on the four boys as they silently walked round in a circle, one behind the other.

  ‘I hope so.’

  The night before she gave birth she was woken by a commotion in the farmyard. Autumn was in full grip and outside the warmth of the barn a frost had already taken hold. She gathered a blanket around her and went out. Rachel beckoned her to stay back but she pushed past her.

  At the end of the yard was a gate, beyond which was the farm track which in turn lead up to the road. Some twenty yards on the other side of the gate, standing on the uneven track were three men. They were all tall, standing stock still in the shadow of the night so it was not possible to make out any features. The two Germans were at the gate, pointing excitedly at them. The four boys were petrified, cowering in the middle of the farmyard. The doctor walked towards the gate.

  ‘What do you want?’ he called out in French.

  The three men remained perfectly still. There was no breeze that night, but the noise had started to disturb the farm. The dark shape of a cow could be seen moving in the field behind the men. One of the chickens clucked its disapproval.

  ‘Who are you?’ The doctor’s voice was firm but his French was not convincing.

  The three men moved forward by one step, staying within the shadow.

  She walked up behind the doctor. ‘Please go away,’ she called out loudly, making sure they would be in no doubt that she was French. ‘We are a French family. This is our farm. We have nothing of value here.’

  The three men remained motionless.

  To her left, she could see Elisabette in the broken doorway of the farmhouse, out of sight of the men. She had a rifle in her hands and was carefully releasing the safety catch.

  ‘I don’t think they are French,’ the doctor said very quietly to her. The air was steamy with his breath.

  ‘What are you after? We are French,’ she called out in English. The doctor glanced quizzically at her.

  Still no response. Had she been on her own, she would have wondered whether it was an illusion. But there was no doubt that the three men were there.

  ‘Who are you?’ the doctor cried out again, this time in German, his voice trembling.

  The men stirred and appeared to be muttering to each other.

  ‘God help us,’ the doctor whispered, taking two or three steps back, fear etched onto his face.

  She walked right up to the gate and called out in German.

  ‘We are French. Leave us alone. There are Americans nearby. In one of the fields next to our farm. They will come if they hear anything. They promised us that.’

  More muttering from the three men. Two turned and started to walk away from the farm. The third waited a moment and took one step forward. The moonlight caught his body and the lower part of his face. He was dressed all in black, in uniform. She leaned forward to get a better view of him.

  ‘Dreckige Juden,’ he said. Filthy Jews. It was said softly enough for just her to hear, his voice did not carry as far as the doctor. She had no doubt as to what she had heard. He paused a moment and then turned sharply and joined the other two walking away from the farm.

  Shaken, she walked back to the doctor. SS renegades, she thought, evading capture, just realising that their dream was over. There was the sound of whimpering from inside the outhouse where the four boys had shut themselves in. Elisabette had put the safety catch back on the rifle.

  ‘What did he say ? I thought I heard him say something?’ asked the doctor.

  She looked at the doctor, at Rachel, at the two Roma women, at Hans and Ludwig who were both smiling and beyond them at the outhouse door, where the four boys were now peering anxiously from behind a half open door.

  What could she say to them?

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, her hand reassuringly stroking the doctor’s forearm. ‘He didn’t say anything.’

  ooo000ooo

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Paris

  October 1944

  Owen Quinn had the first of a number of lucky breaks on that Friday afternoon in St Omer, not that he was to realise it at the time.

  After Nicole had left, he had planned to take a train to Paris, but when he went into the station there were long queues and very few trains. He stood very little chance, they told him in the ticket office, of making it to Paris by train that day.

  Then he remembered that at the café where he had been with Nicole just before she left had been a couple of US Marine officers who were talking loudly about driving down to Paris that day. He returned to the café and they were just about to leave.

  ‘Sure kid, as long as you don’t mind a jeep ride.’

  Had he taken the train, it would have been possible for the very tall man in the trilby watching him from the back of the station to have followed him. When he saw him leave and then hitch a ride in a jeep, he realised he was beaten, for the time being.

  Half an hour later and Quinn wished he was back on the platform at St Omer, going nowhere. The two Marine officers had a driver called Bob. Owen thought that Bob drove very nicely, if a bit too fast. The officer who was called Bill thought that Bob was driving too slowly, but was not complaining. The other officer, Earl, thought that Bob was driving far too slowly. As Earl outranked Bill, Bob had to drive very fast. Owen hung on to a side-rail with one hand and an overhead bar with the other as their death defying journey gathered pace. On a number of occasions they came across groups of refugees heading one direction or the other, clogging up the road with handcarts. Bob would drive round them by cutting into a field and then back onto the road. It was, without doubt, the longest one hundred and fifty miles of his life.

  They entered a city apparently unscathed by war. The French had General Dietrich von Choltitz to thank for that, Bill shouted at him. Hitler had appointed von Choltitz as commandant of Paris just a matter of days before its liberation with o
rders to destroy the city. Von Choltitz instead negotiated an orderly surrender and thus saved it.

  ‘Where do you want be dropped, kid?’ The jeep had slowed down to a speed one degree below suicidal and Earl had turned round from the front passenger seat to shout at him. ‘Want some girls? With that uniform, kid, and your accent you’ll get a very good discount. I know a good place. Here’s a card. Mention my name. Earl from Chicago.’

  ‘The centre will be fine thanks.’ Owen was now able to breathe normally and remove one numbed hand from the rail. He was not sure if his wrist was broken, he would need to wait until some feeling returned to it.

  Five minutes later and they were picking up speed again down a very broad avenue before screeching to a halt under the Arc d’Triomphe. He had said that he wanted to be dropped in the centre of Paris and they had taken him at his word. Some passers-by were shaking their heads disapprovingly. They did not want to appear ungrateful, but...

  ‘OK, kid. Guess this is as near as you’re going to get to the centre of Paris. Good luck.’

  It was six o’clock now and he decided to find somewhere to stay. Twelve avenues emerged like spokes from the Arc d’Triomphe. Avenue de la Grande Armeé was the nearest and felt appropriate, somehow. He passed a number of hotels and eventually found one that was much the same as the others he had walked past, and checked in.

  That evening, he walked up and down the Champs Élysées, with the infatuation common to all first time visitors to the city and an aching sense of regret that this was where he had planned to come with Nathalie. This was where they were going to walk; this was where they would eat. Lovers, some recently reunited, others quite probably newly acquainted, sat quietly in the bars, not needing to speak. He could only be a spectator.

  What was most noticeable was the number of men in uniform. Americans, British, French, Canadian, Polish. Not many Royal Navy, he had to admit. The River Seine had not been too much of a problem, though he was saluted by a couple of Royal Navy ratings, who looked as surprised to see an officer in the Champs Élysées as he was to see them.

  The photographs of Nathalie he now carried in his pocket were not to prop by his bedside but to help trace her. But what was he meant to do in this city? Show them to every shopkeeper, every bar owner? Would the police help? He had heard all about the Paris concierges who knew everything that went on in their block and even their street. Should he try some of them? There would be tens of thousands in this city. It would be hopeless. If only he had one clue to go on. The one morsel he had to go on was when they had dinner at Archibald’s club and Mrs Hardisty asked her where she came from in Paris. And what was Nathalie’s reply? ‘Oh, we moved around. Usually south of the fourteenth.’

  He had picked up a map of Paris in the hotel and settled into a bar to study it. He bought a Pastis because he imagined that was the thing to do, a decision he quickly regretted. The fourteenth arrondissement was a large area in the south of the city, criss-crossed by large avenues and boulevards like St Jacques, du Maine and Raspail, with the Montparnasse cemetery at its heart. If he knew for sure that she had a connection with the fourteenth then he could base himself there for a week or even a month and work his way through it systematically. He would need to be lucky, but it was not impossible. Some shopkeeper, or concierge or schoolteacher might recognise the photo. No one can live in a city and not leave a single trace, though he was beginning to realise that if anyone was capable of doing that, then Nathalie would be.

  But Nathalie had not actually said she lived in the fourteenth arrondissement. She had told Mrs Hardisty that they lived south of it. Usually. Quinn shook his head and downed the Pastis in one go without thinking. It was hopeless. The Pastis - and the situation. Two thirds of France was south of the 14th – for heaven’s sake.

  ooo000ooo

  He woke up early the next morning to the rank smell of drains that he had noticed throughout the city the previous day and more sun streaming into the room than he imagined. That was because he had forgotten to draw the curtains and he had forgotten to do so because of what had happened in the bar after he had downed his Pastis in one go.

  He must have pulled a face because a couple of corporals from the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers came over to join him. Reg and Ron, or it could have been Ron and Reg. They were from the Fourth Battalion and had fought in the Battle of Normandy and wanted him to know it. They had fought hard and now they were drinking hard. ‘You don’t want to be drinking that muck, pal.’ For one dreadful moment he thought they might have found a supply of Newcastle Brown Ale in Paris and he was really going to have to make his excuses and leave. But no, Reg and Ron had found a wonderful drink. Made with herbs. Absinthe they called it. Good for you. And that was pretty much all he could remember. Maybe if it did make you forget, it was good for you. Something about it not being legal but they had befriended a bar owner. He remembered little more than that.

  He did remember a taxi back and promises of lifelong friendship and now he was on the bed, fully clothed.

  He bathed, shaved and went out in search of coffee and his wife. His first inclination was not to wear uniform, but as a non-Frenchman he would have stuck out like a sore thumb in civilian clothes and in any case, the uniform of an Allied officer counted for something in this city and that wouldn’t last long.

  It was a glorious autumn morning and in a noisy café on the Avenue Hoche where everyone was smoking strong cigarettes, he had a coffee and the first croissant of his life . He was surprised to see a couple on the table next to him already sharing a bottle of wine.

  From his wallet he took out the piece of paper Nicole had given him with the name and address of her contact. It was in Rue Taitbout in the ninth arrondissement. He found it on the map. There were some Metro stations nearby, but he decided to walk. He didn’t have a schedule and that way he might get a feel for the city. At the end of Avenue Hoche he turned right onto Rue Faubourg St Honoré and then left into Boulevard Haussmann. It was a long walk, much further than he had imagined – and he was supposed to be a maps expert. He imagined it was not drawn to a proper scale. Despite having been occupied for so long, Paris felt more at ease than London. Maybe, he thought, it was because it had been occupied. It had not suffered air raids and the city itself had remained intact. The buildings are the heart of a city. The people come and go and give it its soul, but the fabric of the buildings, the style and atmosphere that they evoke – that are what gives a city its character. He admired the sweeping boulevards and the height of the buildings which made it feel as if he was walking through an elegant ravine. He had been in the city for less than twenty-four hours and could already see why people were besotted by it, even though it smelled entirely different to anywhere he had been before. The smell of drains and the ever present aroma of strong cigarettes. If only his first visit here had been for a different reason.

  Just after the Opera he came to the junction with Rue La Fayette and then turned on to Rue Taitbout. He noticed small groups of people, twos and threes, dressed smartly in dark clothing, moving hurriedly to his right. They all seemed to be going in the same direction and appeared to be glancing anxiously at him. There was an atmosphere that he could not put his finger on. It felt like a classroom which all the children had suddenly left but the sense of noise remained. The area felt abandoned.

  The building he was looking for was four blocks to the north, just before Rue de Châteaudun. The front door was open and the ground floor comprised the mailboxes for the flats. He checked the note and studied the names on the mailboxes.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  The old lady was peering at him from inside her concierge’s room. ‘Who do you want. Are you police?’

  After all these years of occupation even a Royal Navy uniform obviously had these connotations.

  ‘No, I am looking for... André...Koln?’ She turned away, speaking as she did so. ‘Top floor. Number 9. The lift is broken, so don’t bother with it.’

  He walked the e
ight flights of stairs. These days, his back and leg were fine, but a climb like this could trigger stiffness. He paused on a landing halfway up, before continuing, eventually ringing the bell for number 9. There was no reply. He rang again, still no reply. He had walked a long way to find no one in. He would leave a note and return in the afternoon.

  He was not sure whether I am a British officer and a friend recommended I come to see you would be of any use, but that is what he wrote and slid under the door. He would return in the early afternoon.

  He had descended one flight of stairs when a door above him opened and a voice called out, ‘Wait! Come up!’

  The figure leaning against the door of apartment 19 eyeing him coming up the stairs was tall and thin, with a dark complexion but an unhealthy pallor and a couple of days’ growth of beard. His hair was long and he had a bohemian air about him that Quinn felt was in keeping with the surroundings. He held out his hand, taking care to do up his shirtsleeve as he did so.

  ‘André Koln. Hello.’

  ‘Owen Quinn, I am glad to meet you.’

  ‘Come in.’

  The main room of the flat was chaotic, books and papers were piled everywhere. On the sofa was a stack of framed pictures and photographs. The floor around the sofa was dotted with used cups and wine glasses. The table by the window was piled high with papers and a typewriter. Those surfaces that were still surfaces were covered with a veneer of dust. One wall of the room was dominated by a large glass fronted cabinet, part covered by a dust sheet. Where that sheet had slipped down, ornaments were visible. On the walls he spotted a series of square and rectangular dark patches, outlining where pictures or mirrors had once been.

  Yet despite the chaos and the untidiness there was a quality to the room. ‘A woman must have lived here,’ Quinn thought. The curtains were clearly good quality and they matched the carpets and the wallpaper.

  André sat at the table, next to a large ashtray which contained the remains of a number of packets of cigarettes. His hand slightly shook as he took one out of a packet and he had to use two hands to light it, closing his eyes briefly as he inhaled deeply.