by Robbie, Vic
Within minutes, the young man returned and announced: ‘Mademoiselle, may I introduce General-Leutenant Otto von Bayerstein?’ And he stood aside to allow his commanding officer to enter the room. She had expected him to be in uniform. Instead, he wore a lightweight linen suit, although his military bearing couldn’t be disguised. She noticed there wasn’t an ounce of spare flesh on him and he had a confident, cruel smile that made her skin crawl. His eyes were grey and almost lifeless and a livid scar ran down the right side of his face. She imagined even in sleep it would be a brutal countenance. She had been here before, too many times, and in these moments she felt a frisson of fear tinged with an anticipation of pleasure, knowing she would find some comfort in what she had to do.
With a flourish, he doffed his wide-brimmed hat and made a half bow. ‘Mademoiselle, it is my pleasure to meet you. I am–’
‘I know very well who and what you are,’ she said, her voice rising slightly with the imperiousness of a dowager confronting a tradesman.
Unfazed, von Bayerstein allowed himself a smile, and she noticed the scar moved across his face like a small animal. ‘That makes things easier.’
‘I doubt it. I wasn’t impressed by you sending your errand boy to proposition me at the club.’
‘My apologies, but the Major is hardly an errand boy.’ She noticed he hadn’t any problems with the French language. Again, he gave a half bow although she could see the sarcasm in his body posture. ‘The Major knows only soldiering, he has no romance in his soul. He has no knowledge of these matters.’
‘And what matters might those be?’
His eyes ran over the woman from her black hair tumbling over her shoulders to her slim ankles. If anything, he felt a twinge of disappointment. He had hoped her to be more meretricious, dressed more like the showgirl he knew her to be. He had come to accept and understand his weakness. Since his youth, he’d frequented backstreet brothels and clubs where the women exuded an air of easy availability that aroused him. This woman was different. It was as if she were hiding her sexuality. Wearing hardly any make-up, only some light lipstick, and dressed as though she could have been a primary school teacher. He hesitated, wondering had he made a mistake and should he turn around and walk away. But the image of her dancing only inflamed him and he believed she was teasing him, inviting him to accept the challenge. Like a bull being pulled along by the ring in its nose, this was a road he had often walked. His infatuations too often brought him to the edge of disgrace yet at the same time made life all the more exciting. He had been infatuated with Maria, an opera singer in Berlin, a dark-eyed beauty who when she sang seemed to be singing only for him. Only 31, her admirers were many and he had to choose his opportunities to be with her. The last time he slept with her he left her building mid-morning and it wasn’t until later he realised he’d left his hat at her apartment on the fourth floor of a smart block. Eager to have any excuse to see her again, he returned to collect it. As he arrived, a car drew up outside the building and four men, Gestapo officers, got out and went inside. Curious, he lit a cigarette and loitered by a newsstand, browsing the newspapers and magazines. He didn’t see it, but he heard a noise in the road, a loud slap, then silence, then women screaming, and a crowd gathering in the middle of the thoroughfare. He elbowed his way through the mass to find the body of a woman lying in the road almost in a running position. It was Maria. The Gestapo officers emerged from the building and one shouted at the crowd. ‘Go away. Go about your business. There’s nothing to see here.’ And a cowed crowd dispersed.
According to rumour, Maria had been friendly with Hitler. And he still wondered if his posting to Martinique was because he’d shared the woman with the Führer.
‘Please, sit down,’ Natalie said and gestured to a chair in front of her. She gave a small smile, somewhere between distaste and anticipation.
‘If you do not mind, mademoiselle, I would prefer to stand, and I am sorry if the Major’s visit made you think less of me.’
‘No, it couldn’t do that.’ She smiled and reminded herself she had to tread a delicate line between rejection and encouragement. She knew his type. He was unlikely to be deterred, no matter what she did.
He cleared his throat. ‘I visit in the hope you would do me the honour of dining with me at Fort Desaix.’
‘Why?’
‘I have seen you dance and…’
Her laugh sounded like breaking glass. ‘Don’t be misled, Herr General. That was merely a stage performance, I’m nothing like that,’ she said and crossed and uncrossed her legs so he could see a flash of her ankles.
It looked as though he blushed although it might have been a trick of the light and he soon regained his composure.
‘I had hoped that was the case and, if I may, I wish to make your acquaintance.’
She was amused by the ritual and intrigued by this German aristocrat who acted as though he were in pre-war Germany. These days Germans took what they wanted, by force if necessary. She had experienced it at first hand in France.
He also realised he didn’t have to keep up this charade. It was all part of the sport – hunting a deer, trapping it and eventually having it eat out of your hand before killing it.
‘Why?’
‘We Germans and French should get to know each other better and perhaps build bridges.’
‘That’s rich after your troops blew up so many of our bridges when you invaded my country.’
‘But we are now in partnership with your Vichy government and perhaps this is the dawn of a new age.’
‘I doubt if having dinner with you will be a part of history, and I have to be careful or else I could be labelled as a collaborateur.’
‘I don’t think it would trouble a woman like you.’
‘I see, after five minutes you believe you know how I think.’
‘Pardon, mademoiselle, I didn’t mean any offence. But would you join me?’
‘On the condition it will be once only.’
Satisfied, he nodded and thought once might be enough. ‘I shall send a car for you.’ And he stepped forward, took her hand and kissed it, and wheeled around and left the room.
She lit another cigarette before going over to the window to watch the General depart. The car swept away and picked up speed, and she exhaled in relief.
So far so good, although once in Fort Desaix she would be in danger.
24
‘Ronnie,’ Ben called out. ‘Where are you, Ronnie?’
No response.
He stopped and listened, but the only sounds were of birds in the trees outside. At the rear of the café, there was a small bar with shelves of bottles backed by a large mirror and in front of the panoramic window none of the tables had been laid for diners. Although the door was unlocked, the café appeared to be deserted, and he wondered where Ronnie had gone. The ceiling fans still rotated slowly as if someone had left in a hurry.
By the side of the bar, another door led to the kitchens and he walked towards it, his shoes clicking on the wooden floor. It creaked like the other one as he pushed it open and he found the kitchen to be empty and there were no signs that anything would be cooked for several hours at least.
Sensing a presence behind him, the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. But before he could move, a large brown forearm had him in a choke hold, compressing his windpipe so it felt like his brains were being squeezed out of his eye sockets. Another pair of hands pulled his arms behind him, and the cold metal of handcuffs encircled his wrists and clicked shut. At the same time, more hands grabbed his legs, pulling him off balance and he was suspended in mid-air while shackles were fitted around his ankles.
He pulled his head from side to side in an attempt to free himself, but the grip was too strong. ‘What the–’
Before he could finish the sentence, they forced a rag into his mouth and stuck tape over his lips to secure it. A black hood was pulled over his head, allowing only a hint of light through the thick stuff of the cloth.
His kidnappers made no sound as they carried out their task taking them only seconds, and he realised they’d done this before. They hoisted him up on their shoulders like a roll of carpet, a door opened and he felt them moving out into the hot afternoon air.
For the first time, he heard a voice. It spoke only one word he couldn’t understand and he heard another door open before they bundled him like a corpse into the back of a van stinking of gasoline. And the wooden floor was rough and skinned his knees and elbows. The door slammed shut and someone banged a hand on the side of the van and yelled ‘Allez.’ Its engine started up, coughing unhealthily, and the driver engaged first gear and it moved forward picking a path out from behind the café. As it increased speed, he rolled around in the back unable to stop his head banging into the sides and skinning his cheeks and elbows even more. He was like a boxer on the ropes with his arms trapped by his side while the champion pummelled him at will. He began to gag and a panic rose up in his throat as he struggled to swallow and breathe.
They were obviously moving out of town as the van didn’t slow and after a while he guessed they were climbing as the engine note changed and it began to complain in a whining growl. And every time the driver engaged a gear, the van lurched and he took another blow.
Who were these people? What did they want from him? And what had happened to Ronnie? Had they – the secret police or the Nazis – killed her, and were they taking him somewhere they could interrogate him? He had been on the island only twenty-four hours and hadn’t had time to make enemies. He was just a writer researching a book. Then he remembered the two Nazis. Perhaps they knew why Smee wanted him on the island, even if he didn’t.
After a journey of what he estimated to be more than an hour, the van stopped abruptly with a squeal of brakes. He heard his kidnappers coming towards the back of the vehicle. The doors opened again and, when they pulled him out, he grunted in pain as an elbow dragged along the wooden floor. And someone hoisted him up and carried him before dumping him on the ground.
Another engine started up, different from the van and more like a chugging sound, and he smelled pungent diesel fumes. This time the wooden floor was polished and not rough. But it was moving, rocking to and fro and swaying from side to side making him feel sick.
He was on a boat.
25
Ben reckoned the swaying and rolling of the boat had induced sleep or perhaps it was a combination of the motion and the blows to his head when he rolled about in the back of the van. Now he sensed movement around him. The chugging of the boat’s diesel engine cut out and he heard his captors speaking in French although he couldn’t understand the dialect. Again, they pulled him upright and put him over someone’s shoulder. The carrier took a couple of steps and steadied himself before stepping out of the boat, and more hands supported them and pushed them onto dry land. His weight was causing problems for the man whose breath wheezed and rattled. He had taken only a dozen or so steps before Ben was hoisted up onto the back of what he reckoned was an open truck because he felt a cooling breeze on his skin. After more shouts, the truck lurched off and he slammed into its side, wincing in pain as sharp metal caught his head. It was as painful as the earlier journey and, as the truck wound its way up a hill, he was again thrown around with nothing to protect him. Mercifully, they came to a halt before not too long and once more they manhandled him out of the truck and pushed him up some steps. They led him through two sets of swing doors, down a long corridor with their footsteps echoing around them, and through another door before they deposited him on a wooden bench. The door slammed shut behind them with an ominous click.
‘Why–’ Ben tried to shout, but the cloth in his mouth reduced it to a consumptive cough ‘–am I here?’ The rest of it trailed off into nothingness. He couldn’t hear anything and wondered if there were people in the room watching him. His hands and legs were still shackled and he tried to push himself up into a standing position only to lose his balance and pitch headlong onto the stone floor.
He lay there gasping, deciding it would be better to conserve what energy he had left. After about thirty minutes, the door opened and, judging by the footsteps, two people had joined him. Again, he tried to ask the question but realised it was useless.
‘Get it off his head,’ an educated voice said.
Fingers pulled at the hood and as it came away he blinked at the brightness although the light in the room was dim. Now he could see again relief surged through his body. The man pulled the tape off his mouth and reached into it to extricate the sodden cloth. Ben considered biting his fingers but instead spat it out.
Gasping for air, he croaked: ‘Why am I here? What do you want with me?
Another man, the one with the educated voice, spoke from behind. ‘Unshackle his legs,’ he ordered.
The first man bent down and unlocked the shackles and pulled them free. And he didn’t try to stop Ben standing up.
The other man spoke again. ‘If you sit down, we can do the same for your hands.’
The first man hesitated.
‘Do it, he can’t be any danger to us.’
Ben rolled his wrists and flexed his fingers, rubbing them to bring them back to life. ‘You guys sure know how to make a visitor welcome.’
The other man chuckled. ‘Think yourself privileged.’
‘Who are you?’ he asked, surprised he sounded calm.
The first man stepped aside and took out a pistol from its holster and trained the firearm on Ben.
A tall man emerged from the shadows. He held himself like a boxer and looked balanced as if ready to evade the next punch. Only a gradual greying of the hair at the temples and in a light beard suggested he might be older than he looked. His eyes ran over Ben sizing him up. It was a strong face with a prominent nose and chin and a forehead so deeply lined it appeared to have been sculpted. It had a look suggesting it would be compassionate yet at the same time could quickly change to something more threatening. And when he spoke in a soft baritone, the voice was measured. ‘I admire your spirit, Peters, but it should be me asking the questions?’
He glanced over at his colleague and, with a shake of his hand, ordered: ‘Put the gun away.’
‘Are you secret police? You’re not the right colour for Nazis.’
The man chuckled and came and sat on the corner of the table in front of him and hesitated, unsure how to answer him. ‘The Nazis and the police would be happy to be in the same room with me. My name is Raymond and they’ve been looking for me for some time.’
‘So you’re not a Vichy sympathiser?’
Raymond shook his head.
‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, but next time could we meet in a bar?
‘Let me apologise for the way you’ve been taken here,’ Raymond said. ‘Some of my men can be a bit exuberant and treat friends the same as they do enemies. I hope you’re our friend?’
‘My mother told me never to talk to strangers.’
‘You’re bleeding.’ Raymond ran his fingers over Ben’s forehead. ‘Minor cuts. You’ll survive, believe me. I’m a doctor.’ He retook his seat on the corner of the table and ordered his colleague. ‘Get someone to clean him up.’
‘Are you just as nice to your German friends?’
Raymond chuckled again in the low rumble of a smoker. ‘Oh, no, for them we have special treatment.’ He broke off as a girl entered the room with a bowl of hot water and some towels she used to dab his head and clean up the blood trickling down the side of his face. Ben tried to catch her eye, but she avoided contact as if she were cleaning a statue.
‘That’s an improvement,’ Raymond said at last. ‘Now tell me why you’re here on the island and who sent you?’
He ignored that. ‘Where are we?
‘Not where you think, this is not Martinique. It’s Dominica.’
He flashed Raymond a confused look.
‘It’s an island about thirty miles north of Martinique. It’s British, and it’s safer for us to operate f
rom here.’
He felt relief flooding through him. ‘And do they know what you’re doing to poor people like me?’
‘Oh, I’m sure they’d approve. If we were still on Martinique, both of us would probably be in a Vichy cell or in front of a Nazi firing squad.’
‘They must want you pretty badly?’
Raymond shrugged his big shoulders as though he hadn’t heard. ‘Let’s just say it’s a capital offence to support the Free French.’
‘So you, the Resistance, still manage to be a thorn in their sides?’
‘Enough of this, please answer my questions.’
‘What have you done to Ronnie?’ Ben persisted.
‘Ronnie?’ Raymond looked puzzled and glanced at the other man. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this?’
‘Ronnie is a girl and she’s my driver,’ he said.
‘My men didn’t report any complications.’
He wondered if she’d managed to get away although he didn’t want her going to the authorities to report his kidnap. That would only complicate matters.
‘Who are you, Peters?’ Raymond asked.
‘You’ve got it in one.’
Raymond looked irritated so he thought it better to answer him. ‘Just a scribbler who occasionally gets paid for his writing.’
‘Tell me what I want to know and perhaps I’ll allow you to go back to your scribbling or–’ Raymond stood up towering over him.
‘What?’
‘If you don’t tell me who you’re working for then sometime in the future, maybe days from now or weeks or even months, your body will be found snagged in some fisherman’s nets. And by then, the fishes will have eaten the tasty bits and no one will know who you are.’
‘They don’t anyway so what’s the difference?’
‘Tell me, why are you on the island?’