Staying Alive

by Staying Alive (retail) (epub)

  ‘Very special, that one. Must be about ten years older than him, has two small children and a husband who’s something of a VIP. I’ve never set eyes on her but according to Marc she’s ravishingly beautiful as well as strongly anti-German and anti-Vichy, while the husband’s a dyed-in-the-wool Pétainist and something of a stuffed shirt.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like an ideal match, exactly. When you say she’s Marc’s girlfriend, d’you mean they’re lovers?’

  ‘I don’t know. If Marc had his way, I’m sure they would be. But the husband’s a well-heeled lawyer, offices in two or three different places – Narbonne, Perpignan and I think Montpellier – and on top of that he’s the local Chef des Compagnons de France, Pétain’s version of the Hitler Youth, sort of, although I’m told it’s more like the Boy Scouts. He’s its local chieftain anyway, takes the salute at march-pasts, all that.’

  ‘And his wife’s done a bunk.’

  ‘Disappeared, Marc said. He went to the house – big old place, Manoir de l’Aude – as he does periodically when he’s got lobsters, and – no Gabrielle.’

  ‘Gabrielle…’

  ‘He calls her Gabi.’

  ‘Is the fish business how he got to know her?’

  ‘No. If he’d been only a hawker I doubt she’d have had anything to do with him. It’d be the cook dealing with him anyway. In fact it was in connection with the escape-line I told you about. Two of his “parcels” were in need of help, and she provided it. I think the lobsters were probably his excuse for continuing to visit her after that. And hers maybe for – well, receiving him, as one might put it.’

  ‘Unless she just likes lobsters?’

  Jake had liked that.

  Due north and south, the Allée Verdier ran, southbound and northbound routes divided by a strip of trees, shrubs and grass. Half a kilometre of this and then the Grand Rond, from which one would fork right towards Pont St-Michel. Approaching five-thirty – and the quick glance at her watch overtaken by the scream of a motorbike coming up fast behind her. Thundering by now – and a second one, accounting for that volume of sound. Riders in helmets, boots, greenish-khaki greatcoats: noise fading ahead where they’d swung into the Grand Rond – then away to the right, the engine scream picking up initially, then swiftly dying.

  Rosie muttering as she pedalled, Bastards. This is France! Lost your way or something?

  She’d asked Jake while eating her beans an hour ago whether Marc knew that the Hardball commando team was more likely to be arriving by felucca than by parachutage, and the answer had been no, he hadn’t told him, the only action required of him at this stage being to nose around among his fishermen friends and others to pick up any whispers about new coastal-defence measures the Boches might be introducing.

  Jake had said, ‘There’s no certainty they’ll come in by sea. As I said, Suzie, time’s really very short. The likely dates of 28th/30th only give us a week now – and they said confirmation by 27th, right? Well, before that they’d have to be flown out to Gib – where, all right, there’d be a felucca victualled and standing by to shove off as soon as they arrived – as long as RN reconnaissance gave the go-ahead – but depending on wind and weather they wouldn’t make it from Gib in less than three days – uh? D’you see – for a landing on the 28th they’d need to be at sea by the 25th at the latest. So London’s deadline for decisions has to be – what, 22nd?’

  ‘Two days’ time.’

  ‘Right. Consequently, if Marc came up with bad news from the beaches, we’d need to get it to Baker Street virtually in minutes – uh?’

  ‘Wish to God they’d sent the spare transceivers.’

  She’d have had one in place – some good place – so all she’d need do was ride out to it. Move it before the next transmission, sure, but there it’d be, and with two sets to deploy you’d alternate between them. They’d be in widely separated areas and you’d shift each of them to a different location every time.

  Very different from this – transceiver and battery awkwardly heavy in the bike’s panier, under an assortment of clothes for laundering.

  Jake had said, ‘What it comes down to is that as far as we’re concerned, time’s likely to be very short when we do get a decision. And if it’s not to be a beach landing, obviously a parachutage. Preferably nowhere near last night’s.’

  ‘Where they dropped me might be best – vicinity of Cahors?’

  He’d agreed: ‘As good as anywhere.’

  Scraping up the last of her cheesy beans… ‘It would have been the Lancaster’s racket alerting a patrol, I suppose. The St-Girons thing, I mean.’

  ‘As like as not. Or just bad luck. Well, that anyway.’

  ‘Not a leak – remotely possible?’

  ‘A leak by whom? How and when?’

  ‘I only wondered when we nearly ran into that other road-block. But who – well, you know better than I do, but with two Maquis bands involved and having to know in advance where and when – wouldn’t have to be any of those actually taking part, would it? I mean, others who stayed home would have known about it?’

  ‘Surely. But we need them, we have to trust them. If there’s a rotten apple in this or that barrel, up to the bands’ leaders, isn’t it?’

  ‘You mean nothing we could do about it.’ She’d been at the sink, washing the plate she’d used. ‘We’re in their hands.’

  ‘Any case, Suzie, what the maquisards would have known in advance – from Déclan – would be date, time and dropping-zone. If the Boches had had that much passed to them, don’t you think they’d have had the farm surrounded, all of you in the bag?’

  * * *

  He was right, of course. By now one would have been either dead or in a Gestapo cell, certainly not indulging in that enjoyable as well as useful tête-a-tête with him – or now crossing this long bridge over the grey, wind-streaked Garonne. With German army trucks coming the other way: personnel-carriers, troops on bench seats with slung rifles, heads in helmets swivelling to stare at her as the things growled past. Because she happened to be female, no other reason: despite her shapelessness in the thick coat and headscarf.

  Well. Staring at everyone and every thing, probably. Slum rats and country bumpkins. Gone now anyway, forget them. Too much in one’s head already, when one needed to be right on the ball. Would have maybe half an hour to kill before the light went, she thought. Enough light between now and then to check out not only the ruin or as much as was left of it but also its surroundings, so as to have a return route in mind. There were a lot of cyclists around now as well as gazos of all shapes and sizes, but by the time she was on her way back it would probably have thinned out quite a bit – less good, making one more conspicuous especially when riding as it were against the tide. Although there’d be some, surely, coming into town. Pedalling round the elevated rond-point now and slanting away free-wheeling on the down-gradient into Charles de Fitte, which was an avenue running ruler-straight northwestward to the Pont des Catalans. Might conceivably take that route home: but maybe not, maybe wiser to stay off any major thoroughfare by then. Allowing for the possibility of the bastards having taken bearings on the source of transmissions and being on their way by the time she started back: their receivers having fallen silent, they’d know she’d be on the move, if they’d any gumption would have their eyes open for solitaries coming from that direction.

  Use minor roads then, on this side of the river. Use the Pont St-Michel again but approach its rond-point from the south, having detoured west and south to confuse the issue and evade them – ‘them’ being the Funkabwehr radio-detection goons of the RHSA or Reichssicherheitshauptamt, Himmler’s security executive.

  And bugger him. Better still, hang him. One of these days, please God?

  Pedalling at about twelve or fifteen kph with that attractive thought in mind: not hurrying, just pushing along like any other homegoing worker at Friday closing-time, eight minutes to the big intersection – crossing a very large place which she remembered
from the map to be in fact two places, one right and one left. Busy with traffic, and pedestrians crowding over at crossings controlled by gendarmes, but by luck she was making it without stopping – had made it. So only about a minute now to where she’d be turning off. Left now – and a slight wobble caused by the transceiver’s weight directly above the front wheel, when one lost that much speed. She was almost on her own here, most of the crowd having either turned off in those twin places, or stayed on Charles de Fitte. And the right turn coming up now – with the map in mind, Jake’s finger descending and his ‘bob’s your uncle!’ Tower with a jagged top at the back of an area littered with blocks of stone and pinkish brick, a widespread mess of earth and rubble where they’d ripped out what must have been fairly colossal iron railings, and inside brought down some sections of a wall which from as much as one could see of its foundations must have been about four metres thick.

  Like a partially cleared, extensive bomb-site. But stop at that corner. Wheel-wobble – stop to fix it. Rash of ‘Keep Out’ signs clearly visible, white rectangles in the fading light. A male cyclist called out angrily, swerving outward as she swerved in and braked and a black-and-white van which had overtaken her half a minute ago had turned down to the right there. Check on it in a minute. Meanwhile, no problem seeing where she might best get in there, a curving path through the fitter of demolition and maybe continuing to the tower. Internal stone staircase, allegedly: and better be. How the hell else… In that way, then the same way out, presumably. Why not – as long as no one saw one getting in. Unless some better alternative revealed itself when one was in there. OK, long enough, wheel fixed, let’s say: so try it out – walking the bike back the way she’d come, for a different perspective – from which as it happened she could see the way in – a way in – to the tower itself, an aperture that had been an archway. So now circle the whole site, checking for other entrances or exits – and see where that van went, because it had sounded as if it had been stopping, not far down there. No particular reason to be wary of it, no way it could have anything to do with her or her business here, only seemed sensible to check. Jake adding, in her imagination, ‘Idiotic not to, Suzie. Check every bloody thing…’

  Circling left-handed. Quite a few cyclists, and pedestrians – but all going somewhere – home, presumably, and preoccupied in doing so, no reason even to glance at others. The ten- or fifteen-metre-high perimeter wall towered dramatically around this end, immense against the darkening sky. Surely would take some knocking down. Weeks of it, she guessed. There were no ‘Danger, Keep Out’ signs on this part – simple reason, no way anyone could have got in. She could see the tower’s crumbly-looking summit again now, in consequence of being further back from the wall after rounding that end of it.

  Nothing to be seen or discovered on this flank anyway. No reason not to get on with it, get inside. Find the inner stairs – that was the really crucial thing – but first a hiding-place for the bike. And before that – now – check what had happened to the black-and-white van. Slowing, as she completed the circuit, to get a view down that side-street, she could see the glow of the gazo burner – van parked on the right, not far down from the corner. Narrow road, wide van – any other vehicle wanting to come through would have a job getting past it. Might assume therefore it wouldn’t be left there very long. And it had been turned, was facing up this way. Well, never mind, someone else’s business. Foot down on the kerb, just past that corner, and two cyclists coming this way – both women, both highly voluble. Screeching goodbyes now as one of them wheeled across the road and into the street where the van was. Rosie had turned to see where the other had gone, but she’d vanished, and neither of them had even glanced her way.

  So, OK. No one giving a damn: and it was dark enough, too. Wait too long, be too dark. She didn’t want to use her torch until she absolutely had to, and that would be inside the tower. Hang on, though – big, low-slung motor coming – gazo-powered but something like a Daimler-Benz. Switching its lights on at this moment: huge great headlights, tiny lights. Somehow incongruous anyway, a car of such distinction with a funnel on it. She watched it pass, then pushed her bike across the road into the deepening shadows of the wall and tower.

  * * *

  Wasn’t a lot of choice about where to leave the bike, one place being about as good as any other, and she settled for semi-hiding it on its side between a waist-high heap of stone and a buttress of the tower itself. Hidden at least in the sense that it wouldn’t be visible from the road. On her feet again, having taken the transceiver out of the panier and stuffed the dirty clothes back in. Anyone did stumble on it – well they would, but – oh, patrolling gendarme, maybe, if there were such things… Could probably have lugged it with her right into the tower – did consider that for a moment, but it would take some doing – also take time, especially when one had finished and didn’t have any to spare.

  Leave it. Wasting time already.

  She had Uncle Bertie’s torch in a coat pocket, easily accessible when she needed it – inside, of course, not out here, and with luck not until she was ready to transmit. Up there, somewhere. As long as there was a staircase, and it was negotiable – which might be the snag, it might well not be. This far everything straightforward enough despite Jake’s trepidation and – now, on the brink so to speak, a sense of one’s own damn cheek…

  At the breach with its arched top she was peering into blackness and a scent of rot, a mess of soft rotten timber no doubt hundreds of years old, knowing it as timber by its feel and that smell, guessing some of it would be the remnants of ancient doors – and maybe collapsed floors and/or galleries from above. Picking her way over it, into it – stone as well as timber – and quite suddenly making – she thought – OK, use the torch – what was the bottom of a stone staircase and its upward curve.

  It looked climbable – at this level.

  Climbing. Torch back in the right-hand coat pocket, to prevent herself from using it. Getting used to the steps’ height and depths. Five – six – seven… At one stage hearing whoops and laughter, male voices, from somewhere outside. Passing on bikes she guessed, students at the start of the weekend, getting out of it or to it, whatever it might be – anyway had passed, were gone, leaving her with the silence and the smell, the only sounds being those she was making – including her own whispers, mutters. Stone dust and grit all over these steps, which so far seemed sound enough: telling herself that such an immensely solid weight of stone surely had to be. Despite Jacques Jorisse, who as an engineer would know about unsafe structures, having decided not to trust it? She was keeping to the right, arm and shoulder against the curve of wall, brushing each step with the sole of her shoe before putting weight on it. Transceiver case in her left hand close against her body, the other one maintaining contact with the wall.

  Get all the way up if possible. Having got this far, it would be silly not to. Not quite as silly as I’d have been in making for Revel, but—

  Explosive rush of wings around her head – flock of birds all breaking out in panic. Intruder also scared – frozen for a moment before telling herself Only pigeons… Starting again, taking longer, slower breaths to slow her heartbeat, and her foot encountering loose rubble on this next step. Could shift it, all right, but there was more of it than there’d been anywhere lower down, and amongst it were some quite large pieces.

  Kneeling, clearing it by hand. Pausing to transfer the transceiver case to her right side, between her hip and the wall. Both hands free now to get rid of rubble that landed what sounded like a heck of a long way down.

  Might have come from the tower’s partially disintegrated top?

  On her feet again, transceiver back in her left hand, moving on to the cleared next step. Right hand checking the wall above her head, finding deep scores in the stone – thinking of this as the source of fallen rubble – but then – one step higher – fingers encountering a very large timber beam projecting from the wall at right angles to it. Cross-section a
t least a foot square, surely had supported a floor at this level. Must have been others lower down, of which she’d not come across such evidence but which in the past century or centuries would have rotted and collapsed. And if her weight dislodged this one or its stone housing – on or around which she guessed those pigeons might have been roosting and which might be the only cross-beam still in place – the size of a man-of-war’s timbers and weighing God knew how much…

  Wouldn’t help Hardball much if it went and she went with it.

  Shifting down one step, then another. On her knees again, and the case against the wall while she worked at completely clearing both steps of rubble – so as to have enough uncluttered, fairly level surface, room for the set and elbow-room for herself. Transceiver case then flat on the lower step, against the wall with its back against the rise to the higher one. Opening it – not needing torchlight yet – feeling for the reel of aerial wire. Check this end of it plugged in: OK, let the rest go, unreeling itself into the abyss close on her left. Check the battery connection, touch the Off/On switch and thrill to the little red bulb’s glow.

  Torch in mouth now. Delving in an inside pocket for the folded page of cypher, unfolding it and fixing it in the clip in the case’s lid.

  Now, torch on. Transmitter switch to ‘Send’. Headphones on. The crystal for night transmissions was already in the set, she’d fitted it before starting out. Tips of right-hand forefinger, middle finger and thumb settling comme d’habitude around the key’s Bakelite knob: and here goes – no matter who’s bloody listening.

  Calling, calling. Switch back to ‘Receive’, and giving them a jiffy, but no response yet. Over to ‘Send’ and call again. Then to ‘Receive’ and – oh, Christ’s sake—

  Receiving, though. Glory be. Rosie alias Suzette code-name Lucy sending the stuff rippling out – confirmation of paradrop Jake 7 having been received but 5 of its 8 containers lost in subsequent ambush of Printemps team, of which further detail probably tomorrow night, but the promised spare transceivers not received, still urgently required. Closing down now, shifting location for 2300 listening-out. Out.