The Brightest Day

by Christopher Nicole

  She had been mystified until she had realized the truth: Franz was as much in love with Liane as with her. He had been captured by Liane during one of her more outrageous coups and held captive for several hours, seated against her in the back of the car she and her people had stolen. He had expected to be executed, and had perhaps spent those hours inhaling her beauty and her personality as the last things he would ever know, and then, with that romantically quixotic quirk that was one of the most attractive things about her, she had released him and permitted him to walk back to Bordeaux. Joanna had realized that that memory had remained with him ever since, that he did not want Liane to be captured, to be tortured by people like Johann Roess and then executed.

  Thus they had shared a potentially deadly secret, and the sharing had led to love. At least on his part. She was still not one hundred per cent sure, but marriage to such a man, with such a background, promised security in this most insecure of worlds. And now… “I am happy when I’m with you,” Franz said.

  A cue? He knew nothing of what she and his best friend, Freddie von Helsingen, were engaged in, and she had not yet dared tell him. But if it were done…

  “You said you’d been given a post on the staff,” she said. “That you would not have to go back to Russia.”

  “Yes. I am to join General Rommel’s staff. You know he has been appointed commander of our Channel defences? It appears that he requested me personally.”

  “Well, isn’t that a great compliment?”

  “I imagine it has more to do with the fact that I commanded the Dieppe garrison for a while immediately following the defeat of France, and that therefore I should know the area better than most.”

  “Well, the important thing is that you will be staying out of Russia.”

  “Do you think I am happy about that?”

  “Don’t you want to be with me?”

  “Of course I do, my dearest girl. But when I think of all those men, living and fighting in such appalling conditions, suffering…”

  Joanna seized her opportunity. “Like Freddie von Helsingen.”

  Franz got out of the bath and towelled himself dry. “The very thought makes me shudder. Have you seen him?”

  “I call regularly. Madeleine and I are old friends.”

  “Of course. I will come with you the next time.”

  “He has changed,” Joanna said. “Well, I suppose any man would change after what happened to him.”

  “As I said, the idea gives me the shivers.”

  Joanna also got out of the bath and faced him as she dried herself. “Is he still your best friend?”

  “I suppose so. I do not have many friends.”

  “Why?”

  He went into the bedroom and lay on the bed. “I suppose… well… it is not something for you to worry your beautiful head about.”

  She lay beside him. “Is it because you have dared to criticize the way the War is being fought?”

  He frowned at her. “Are you asking that as my wife or as Himmler’s secretary?”

  “Do you suppose I would ever betray you?”

  “Of course I do not. But…”

  “Then would you ever betray me?”

  “You mean as regards Liane? Have I ever failed you?”

  “Never. But what I have to say to you now is of far greater importance than even Liane. Will you promise to listen and then judge me?”

  “Tell me.” He said not a word until she had finished, staring at her all the time. Then he asked, “Bock is in this? You are positive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Rommel?”

  “I do not know if an approach has been made to General Rommel.”

  “And the British have said they will deal with an alternative government?”

  Joanna drew a deep breath. But having started this lie, she had to go on with it, even to her husband. “Yes.”

  “My God, the risks you are running. All of you.”

  “Is it not, all of us?”

  “I will have to talk with Freddie. And Bock, if that is possible.”

  “It is too late for that now.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “The date of the coup was two days ago.”

  Slowly he sat up. “You mean, that while we have been honeymooning…”

  “The Fuehrer has been replaced, yes.”

  “And you never told me?”

  “There was no point in telling you, Franz. Neither you nor I at this time can influence events or even take part in them. You have no command to rally behind you, behind the coup. And I am only of value as a messenger girl. But the time for messengers is past, until I am required by the new government of Germany.”

  “You mean Himmler…”

  “He will have gone as well. Without Hitler, he is nothing.”

  “My God! Only two weeks ago they were shaking my hand. They kissed you. But…” He had been staring at the wall; now he turned sharply. “But if it happened, two days ago—”

  “Why are the bells not ringing? There will be a lot to be done before the fact can be made public.”

  “You can speak so calmly of such an event? We must get there immediately. To Berlin.”

  “We are leaving, as soon as we have breakfasted.” She caught his hand as he was about to get up. “Franz! We are in this, together. No matter what. To the very end.”

  He hesitated then squeezed her fingers “To the very end.”

  *

  The drive took several hours, the tensest hours of even Joanna’s tension-filled recent life. She had to keep up her front of absolute confidence throughout the journey, while growing increasingly uneasy. The countryside, the towns and cities through which they passed were absolutely normal or, at least, as normal as they could be in the middle of a life-and-death war. She had to keep telling herself what she had told Franz; that the news of the coup could not be released until every important post had been secured, every possible hostile leader replaced. But with every mile her uneasiness grew.

  Even Berlin was as normal as she remembered; the crews of old men and boys cleaning up the debris left by a recent bombing raid had become normalcy itself. “Where to, first?” Franz asked. As the wedding had taken place immediately on his return to the city, he had not yet had the time to secure any permanent lodgings, and in any event he knew he would be on his way to France in a few days.

  “The Albert first,” she decided. “There should be a message.” But there was no message, and the staff gave her their usual enthusiastic welcome; over the past four years she had become a permanent resident.

  “What are we to do?” Franz asked when they had gained the privacy of her suite. “My orders are to report immediately to OKW on my return from honeymoon.”

  “You can spare an hour to call on your oldest friend,” Joanna said.

  They took a taxi to the Helsingens’ apartment block and rode up in the lift. “I feel as if I am in a dream,” Franz confessed.

  “It is a little surreal,” Joanna agreed and pressed the bell.

  The door opened. “Why, Fraulein Jonsson!” Hilda said.

  “No, no, Hilda. I am Frau Hoeppner now. This is my husband, Colonel Hoeppner.”

  “Oh, I do apologize, Frau. Herr Colonel.”

  “Is Frau von Helsingen in?”

  “Oh, indeed, Frau Hoeppner. Come in, come in.”

  “Who is it, Hilda?” Madeleine emerged from the lounge. “Joanna! Oh my dear, dear Joanna.” She rushed forward to embrace her, while Joanna looked over her shoulder at her husband and waggled her eyebrows. She had never known Madeleine to be so demonstrative before, certainly not to her. But Madeleine now turned her attention to Franz. “Franz! How well you look.” As if she had not been at the wedding a fortnight previously.

  “I am well, thanks to Joanna,” he agreed.

  “Well, come in, come in. Freddie will be delighted to see you. He was so disappointed not to be able to come to the wedding, but he still hasn’t quite got his
crutches right yet. Hilda, be a dear and make some teas, will you please?”

  Again, Joanna was surprised; Madeleine was not usually so gracious to her maid, a woman she both disliked and distrusted. Hilda hurried off to the kitchen, and Franz and Joanna followed Madeleine into the lounge. “Madeleine,” Joanna said.

  Madeleine gave a quick shake of the head without looking at her. “The bedroom is down here,” she announced in a loud voice, as if Joanna did not know where the bedroom was.

  “I was going to ask after Helen.”

  “Oh, she is having her nap.” She led them down the corridor and opened the bedroom door. “Joanna and Franz are here.”

  “Franz!” Helsingen raised his left arm and Franz squeezed the fingers. “It is good to see you. Joanna!”

  Joanna bent over the bed to kiss him and then looked at Madeleine, who had closed the door and was leaning against it. “Please tell us.”

  Both Madeleine and Helsingen looked at Franz.

  “He is with us,” Joanna said. “We must know what has happened.”

  “Nothing has happened,” Helsingen said.

  “Nothing? But…”

  “I know. It was all arranged. The bomb was in Stauffenberg’s briefcase. It operated on a time system. Attached to the detonator was a small phial of acid. When the phial is broken, the acid commences to eat through the metal. It can be timed to perfection; in this case it was to be fifteen minutes. Stauffenberg was to break the phial when he took out his papers, place the case close to the Fuehrer and a couple of minutes later excuse himself to go to the toilet. He would remain there until after the explosion then immediately contact us to let us know that Hitler was dead. But—”

  “Wait a moment,” Franz said. “Did you say that Stauffenberg was to do all of this? But isn’t he a…” He flushed.

  “Yes,” Helsingen said. “He is a cripple. That is, like me, he has lost one arm and two fingers on the hand of the other. Unlike me, however, his feet are still sound. He volunteered for the task, and as he is on the Fuehrer’s staff and in his condition the last man anyone would suspect of subversion, we agreed to let him go in.”

  “With a bomb?” Franz looked at Joanna. “You said he was to be deposed.” Joanna bit her lip.

  “You know that is not possible,” Helsingen said. “Hitler is not only the head of state, he is the commander-in-chief of the army. You, me, every soldier in the Wehrmacht, has taken a personal oath of loyalty to him. As long as he is alive he can command that loyalty.”

  “And you are prepared—”

  “Ssh,” Madeleine said as Hilda knocked and brought in the tea. “Thank you, Hilda, that will be all.” Hilda glanced around the tense faces. Then she gave a little bob and left the room. Madeleine carefully closed the door and then poured tea.

  Franz had been containing himself with difficulty. “You do not consider assassinating him as breaking your oath?”

  “I and my associates,” Helsingen said, “understand that he must be removed for the good of the country, no matter what is involved. But we also understand that for the army to follow us, they must be relieved of the burden of that oath, and that can only happen when he is dead.”

  Franz gazed at Joanna, who seized the salient point. “But what happened?”

  “Nothing happened,” Helsingen repeated “Stauffenberg attended the meeting at the Fuehrer’s headquarters in Rastenburg in East Prussia. He took up a position not six feet away from the Fuehrer. He opened the briefcase and took out his papers. As he did so, he broke the phial and replaced his briefcase, as I said, not six feet away from where Hitler was standing. Five minutes later he excused himself and went to the toilet. He remained there for ten minutes. Then he realized that something had gone wrong, so he returned to the council chamber. The council was still going on. He took up his original position. There he was handed his briefcase by another officer, who reminded him that it was against regulations for anyone to leave his briefcase, for however short a period.”

  “So what did he do?” Joanna pressed.

  “He flew back to Berlin, expecting to be blown sky high at any moment, and when he regained his apartment he took the case apart and found that the acid had simply not penetrated the detonator covering, although it had made a mess of everything else in the case.”

  “That was an act of God,” Franz said.

  “Oh, really, Franz,” Helsingen said. “It was a simple miscalculation, both of the strength of the covering and of the acid needed.”

  “So what happens now?” Joanna asked.

  Helsingen sighed. “Obviously we must try again. But it cannot happen until Stauffenberg, or another of our group – we are all willing to undertake the task – is again summoned to appear before Hitler. And there are doubters. There are always doubters, even some like you, Franz, who feel that the Fuehrer is protected by some kind of divine power. I will tell you this; if he is protected, it is by the Devil, not God.”

  “And meanwhile the risk of betrayal grows with every day,” Madeleine said.

  Everyone looked at Franz. “I will not betray you,” he said. “But I will not assist you either. Neither will Joanna.”

  Now they looked at her. “I must do as Franz wishes,” she said. “I have given you the support of the British Government, and I will still wish you every success.”

  She kissed them both and left the room. Franz did not speak until they were outside the apartment. Then he said, “You realize that we may have signed our death warrants.”

  She squeezed his hand. “I’ve been under sentence of death before. And I’m still here.”

  *

  James looked down at rugged peaks and sunless valleys. There were trees, and even small woods, but the terrain was certainly unsuited to any large-scale drop; he wasn’t sure he was going to get down unscathed, certainly in the dark. But now he could see lights being waved to and fro, and they seemed just about beneath him. Then he could make out the ground, rushing at him, a providentially flat piece of country. A moment later, he was down and in the midst of several pairs of hands, preventing him from falling or even stumbling.

  “Welcome to the Vercours, Major Barron,” a man said. “I am Colonel Huet, commanding.”

  James freed himself of the clutching hands and saluted; on this occasion he was wearing uniform. “Pleased to be here, sir.”

  He liked what he was looking at. Not very tall, but hatchetfaced and confident, Huet also wore uniform and looked every inch a soldier. “Now come,” he said. “Finding safe places to drop is difficult, so it is a walk of several kilometres to my headquarters. Can you do this?”

  “Certainly,” James said and fell in beside the colonel. The rest of the reception committee, some twenty men, followed. But, James established with a quick look around him, they were all men. A flicker of concern started in his brain – Liane had to have known he was on his way – but he knew he had to be cautious.

  “I understand that you will be able to bring us, how do you say, up to date,” Huet remarked. “This delay has unsettled my people.”

  “I can understand that. What I have to tell you will disappoint you as much as it disappoints us.”

  “I see. There has been a setback?”

  “I think mainly bad luck.” James outlined recent events. “But it is all going to happen. Much depends on the completion of your airstrip. When do you think that will be?”

  “Another month,” Huet said. “It is a matter of hewing and shifting rock with our bare hands, you understand, while concealing what we are doing from the Boche.”

  “How many men have you?”

  “There are roughly 3000 men in the Vercours.”

  “That is tremendous. Virtually brigade strength,”

  “We could claim that, were we properly armed. But what do we have? Rifles, some tommy-guns, a few home-made mortars…”

  “You will have much more once the airstrip is completed,” James assured him and drew a deep breath. “I understand you also have some wo
men.”

  Huet smiled. “Men must have women, major. But I think you are interested in two in particular. The de Gruchy sisters.”

  “Well, they were, basically still are, under my control.”

  “The famous Liane. Oh, indeed. She is quite a personality. But she is not here at the moment.”

  “Sir?” James could not keep the concern out of his voice. “If she has been under your control, then you will know how difficult she is to control. She came to us at the end of last year, with her sister, and some fifty men. They were most welcome and worked with a will. But they were restless. Liane in particular. So they have gone off to attack the Boche.” James was aghast. “Attack them where?”

  “Not very far. Grenoble. It is only a few kilometres away. But the moment Liane learnt that there was a munitions factory there, she became agitated.”

  “You allowed her to go into Grenoble to attack a munitions factory? With respect, sir, this operation was supposed to be secret.”

  “It is very difficult to maintain morale, major, when one assembles a large number of men, and women, to be sure, on the promise of aggressive action against the enemy, and then no orders come, month after month. It becomes necessary to give the more offensive spirits their heads. As for being secret… Do you not realize that the Boche know we are here?”

  “That is very probable, sir. But as yet they have done nothing about it, which must mean they are not sure of either your intention or your numbers. To attack a target in Grenoble must incur the risk of a reprisal.”

  “At this moment, such attacks are going on all over France. And is that not why we are here? To draw the enemy against us?”

  “With respect, sir, this was to happen after you have been properly armed and equipped, and after the Allies have invaded France. What happens elsewhere falls into a different category. This is designed as a major operation.”

  “And when is the invasion going to happen, major?”

  “I am not in a position to tell you that, sir.”

  “I am sure you are right. But… they said it would happen last year and it did not. Now they are saying it will happen this year. But who is to say that it will not be postponed again, and happen next year? Your generals are perfectionists, major. They wish everything to be just right. But in war nothing is ever just right. What did Napoleon say? War is an option of difficulties. But there are also certain factors that are indisputable. And one of them, as I have said, is that to accumulate a sizeable force of men who are not trained and disciplined soldiers on the promise of aggressive action against the enemy, and then condemn them to living in the most primitive circumstances and do nothing more than build an airstrip with their bare hands, is the surest way to have such a body disintegrate, both in morale and in numbers. I authorized Mademoiselle de Gruchy’s raid because I considered it necessary for the maintenance of morale until we can undertake action on a larger scale. If the enemy respond, well, we are ready for them.”