The Sisters of St. Croix

by Diney Costeloe

  “My name’s Terry,” he said.

  Mother Marie-Pierre smiled. “Well, Terry. We’ll do our best for you.”

  When she had regained the privacy of her own cell Mother Marie-Pierre lay on her bed and considered what she could do. Clearly Terry Ham could not stay in the convent for more than a day, it was too dangerous for everybody, but where could he go? How was he going to get home to England? Wouldn’t it be better if he gave himself up to the Germans? He’d be a prisoner of war, after all, not a spy. They wouldn’t shoot a prisoner of war, they’d just send him to a prison camp. Wouldn’t they? If he surrendered to Major Thielen he’d be all right, wouldn’t he? Then she thought of Colonel Hoch and shivered. He might do anything.

  If only I had someone to discuss it with, she thought, as her mind churned with worry and indecision. Aunt Anne maybe, but she was an old lady and would probably tell her to do what she thought best. She needed someone outside the convent, but there was no one, no one she could trust anyway. If only Father Michel were a stronger man, she could go to him, but after this evening’s visit she knew that was hopeless; she already knew what his advice would be.

  If only he were more like Father Bernard in Amiens, she thought. Now there was someone you could trust. Mother Marie-Pierre felt her spirits lift a little. If I could only get Terry to Father Bernard, she thought, he’d know what to do.

  For the next hour she lay in bed, considering and rejecting plans for Terry Ham’s escape, and only slipped into a fitful sleep as the rising bell rang out through the convent, calling the sisters to matins.

  “I would like to speak to everyone after breakfast,” she told Sister Marie-Paul to pre-empt any comment. “Please take the meal, and I will see you in the recreation room when you have all finished.”

  Sister Marie-Paul inclined her head. “Yes, Mother, of course.”

  Leaving the sisters to go into the refectory, Mother Marie-Pierre went to the kitchen, and, collecting Sister St Bruno’s tray, carried it up to her. As the old lady ate her bread and honey her niece told her everything that had happened since she had left the convent three days earlier with the Jewish children. Then she reached the discovery of the English airman in the cellar. “Of course Sister Marie-Marc did right to hide him, at least I think she did, but what am I to do with him now? I wish I had somewhere to send him, as I did with the children.”

  “Well, I think you may have,” her aunt said. “Why not send him to this Father Bernard in Amiens? He helped you before, and clearly he knew what you were doing then. Maybe he will help again.”

  “He might, I suppose.” Sarah sounded doubtful. “I did think of him, but how on earth do I get Terry to him? How can he travel without papers? He will be picked up at once. And supposing Father Bernard turns him away?”

  “Do you think he will?”

  Sarah considered for a moment. “No. No, I don’t think so, but it will put Father Bernard in danger as well. I don’t know if that is justified simply because he didn’t give me and the children away last time. Anyway, I still don’t know how to get him there.”

  “As you did with Marthe,” replied her aunt.

  “Marthe?” Sarah stared at her. “But Marthe went disguised as one of us.”

  “So she did; so could he.”

  “But he’s a man.”

  “Indeed he is,” replied Aunt Anne patiently, “but put him in a nun’s habit and who is to know it? How big is he? Does he have a moustache? A beard?”

  That drew an unwilling laugh from Sarah. “No, he doesn’t have either.”

  “Is he tall?”

  “No, quite small actually.” Sarah thought for a moment and saw there might be a possibility here. “But where will I get a habit from? Sister Marie-Paul isn’t going to give me another. It was bad enough last time, when it was for a girl, and someone we knew. She would consider it sacrilege for a man to wear it. Anyway,” Sarah looked a little guiltily at her aunt, “you know, I don’t really trust her. She says we shouldn’t get involved with secular things. I don’t think I can rely on her to keep the secret anymore.”

  “There’s mine,” suggested Aunt Anne.

  Sarah stared at her. “What did you say?”

  “There’s my habit. I don’t get up much these days, so I don’t need it for a while. I’ll just stay in bed, or in my room anyway.”

  Sarah’s eyes flicked to the habit hanging on the back of the cell door. Sister St Bruno had been tall and though she had shrunk since she’d had to take to her bed, the habit was quite long. As Terry Ham was not in any way a big man, he might fit into it.

  “He couldn’t go by himself,” Sarah said musingly. “Someone would have to go with him to do the talking. He doesn’t speak any French. And he’d need papers.”

  “What did you do about papers for Marthe?”

  “I used Sister Marie-Joseph’s.”

  “Then use them again.”

  “He doesn’t look anything like Sister Marie-Joseph,” Sarah laughed.

  “Very little of him will show,” pointed out her aunt. “And, with luck, all people will see is a nun.”

  Sarah considered the idea. It was on the face of it quite outlandish, disguising a grown man as a young nun, and yet the very absurdity of it meant that there was an outside chance that it would work. People saw what they expected to see. Even so.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said at length, getting to her feet. “We can’t do anything until I can speak with him again tonight.” She sighed. “In the meantime I must go and talk to the sisters. I have to tell them about Sister Eloise.”

  “Remember what she said to you when you left her,” said her aunt quietly. “You must fight evil wherever you find it.”

  “Are you suggesting Sister Marie-Paul is evil?” Sarah was startled.

  “No,” replied her aunt sadly, “just misguided, but the results may be the same.”

  Throughout the day Mother Marie-Pierre considered Sister St Bruno’s suggestion. Sometimes it seemed almost feasible and at others quite impossible. She had an opportunity to speak to Sister Marie-Marc, privately, before the midday meal, and was assured that their visitor had been supplied with all he would need for the day.

  “I’ll come down and see him again when everyone has gone to bed,” Reverend Mother promised. “Then we’ll discuss his escape.”

  By the time the convent was quiet, Mother Marie-Pierre had come to some sort of decision. She took Sister St Bruno’s habit, and, rolling it up under her arm, slipped quietly down the stairs to meet Sister Marie-Marc in the kitchen. Together they went into the cellar, carrying the oil lamp and a dish of stew for their guest.

  “I am sorry you’ve been in the dark all day,” Mother Marie-Pierre said as she set the lamp on the floor and Sister Marie-Marc handed him the stew. “We simply couldn’t risk anyone seeing the light either from the outside, or if they came down into the cellar for something.”

  “That’s all right, Sister,” Terry said, and turned his attention to the food. When he had finished, he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “So, what next?”

  “I have an idea for getting you away from here,” replied Mother Marie-Pierre, “but it depends on several things if it is going to work.”

  “OK. Shoot!”

  So, Mother Marie-Pierre explained her plan. “One of the sisters will go with you, as you don’t speak French. The story will be that you are going to the mother house in Paris.”

  “On a train?” Terry looked doubtful. “What about papers and that?”

  “You’ll have the ones that belong to one of our sisters,” Mother Marie-Pierre told him. “But none of this will work if you don’t fit into this.” She held out the folded habit.

  Terry stared open-mouthed. “Me? Wear that?”

  “Try it on now,” instructed Mother Marie-Pierre. “Sister Marie-Marc and I will give you time to change, then we will come back and arrange your hood.” And before he could protest any further, Reverend Mother drew Sister Marie-Marc out o
f the little room and into the main part of the cellar.

  “Did you discover where the grating is, Sister?” she asked as they waited for their guest to struggle into his disguise.

  “Not in the courtyard, Mother. Nowhere in the courtyard is that overgrown. I think it must be outside the wall. I haven’t been able to find it yet, but I will keep looking.”

  “You can come back now,” Terry said in a strangled whisper, and the two nuns returned to his cellar. He stood awkwardly in the lamplight, his face red with embarrassment. Mother Marie-Pierre fought down the urge to laugh, but Sister Marie-Marc had no such inhibitions and laughed aloud, making Terry’s young face crack into a grin. She was immediately hushed by her superior, and together they set about dressing the young airman in the wimple and hood, which would do more for his disguise than the habit itself.

  When they had finished they stepped back to survey their handiwork and Sister Marie-Marc gasped. “It will work, Mother,” she breathed, and Mother Marie-Pierre, looking critically at the young nun before them, actually began to believe that it might. Terry Ham was young and his face, if they could get him a razor, would be smooth. The wimple covered his hair, his forehead and his ears, fitting snugly under his chin, the shape accentuating the roundness of his boyish face. The hood, with its starched peaks, stood away from his head, and the whole presented a rather coltish nun, but at a glance a nun, nevertheless.

  “I’ll bring you a razor from the hospital,” Mother Marie-Pierre said, “and then I think you’ll do.” She smiled at the look of dismay that still played on his face. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you out of here and safely to Amiens. It will be a start.”

  Terry looked down at his feet. “What about my boots?”

  Reverend Mother looked at them, emerging from under the habit. That could be a problem. The nuns all wore black-laced shoes, but they were nothing like as heavy as the flying boots Terry was wearing.

  “We’ve no ordinary shoes big enough for you,” she said. “You’ll just have to pull the habit down as far as you can, and try not to let them show. Keep your hands in your sleeves, too. They don’t look like a woman’s hands.”

  Terry dutifully tucked his hands into the wide sleeves and tried walking across the room without letting more than the toes of his boots show. Sister Marie-Marc giggled, and he treated her to another grin.

  “Who’s going with me?” he asked anxiously. “I’ll be putting them into danger.”

  Reverend Mother had been considering this. She wanted as few people as possible to know that he had been staying in the convent. The plan was that he, and whoever she sent with him, should set out at dawn and walk into Albert, from where they could take the train to Amiens. She wanted them well away from the village before people were about. She was praying that they would not be stopped, at least until they had reached the town, but she had to send someone who could deal with any problems on the way. She wished Sister Danielle was back. She looked across at Sister Marie-Marc but dismissed the idea at once. She was too old to make such a journey, and she spoke no English, so she wouldn’t be able to communicate with her charge. In any case she could not think of a reason why she might send Sister Marie-Marc to Paris.

  “I’m not sure yet,” she admitted.

  “Can it be her?” he asked nodding in the direction of Sister Marie-Marc. “I know her.”

  “I don’t think so,” she began, but was surprised when Sister Marie-Marc spoke at the same time.

  “Who will go with him, Mother?” she asked. “Will you send me?”

  “No, Sister, not you.” The nun started to protest. “You could not walk all the way to Albert, and you do not speak any English, and,” she added firmly to prevent further argument, “I shall need you here to be my eyes and ears while I am gone.”

  “You’re going?” Sister Marie-Marc sounded incredulous.

  “It is the only answer,” replied Reverend Mother. And indeed, she had recognised in that instant, it was. “I shall take Terry on the train to Amiens and leave him in Father Bernard’s care. We don’t want anyone else to know that he’s been here. Then if the Germans do come back, well, the sisters will all be as innocent as they seem.”

  “All except me,” remarked Sister Marie-Marc.

  “I know I can rely on you to be the picture of innocence,” smiled her superior. She turned back to Terry and spoke in English. “I will be going with you as far as Amiens. But we will have to wait another day so that I can organise the trip without it looking suspicious to anyone here.

  “I shall tell Sister Marie-Paul that I am going back to Paris to fetch Sister Danielle,” she explained to Sister Marie-Marc, “that I don’t want her to travel alone in such uncertain times… which indeed I do not. I will set out very early in the morning, alone. You and Terry will leave before it gets light and wait for me on the other side of the village. Then we shall go on and you will come back.”

  “But Mother…”

  “It is decided, Sister.” Mother Marie-Pierre spoke in a tone that brooked no argument. “I have lost Sister Eloise, I will not put anyone else at risk.” Turning back to Terry Ham, she went on: “We’ll get you a razor and some hot water to shave.” She gave him a brief smile. “Make sure it is a close shave, hein, your life may depend on it.”

  Thirty-six hours later, Sister Celestine let Reverend Mother out of the front door into the cold grey of a November dawn. In her pocket she carried her own papers and those of Sister Marie-Joseph, which she had neglected to return to the young nun.

  “God go with you,” murmured Sister Celestine as Mother Marie-Pierre paused on the threshold. “Bring Sister Danielle back safely to us.”

  “Thank you, Sister, I will.” Sister Marie-Paul had accepted the story that she was going to fetch Sister Danielle as she did not want her to travel alone.

  “But you will be travelling alone, Mother,” she pointed out.

  “That is my risk,” replied Mother Marie-Pierre, “I do not want Sister Danielle to take that risk unnecessarily.”

  “I understand,” said Sister Marie-Paul, thinking even as she smiled that Reverend Mother was clearly feeling guilty about the fate of Sister Eloise. And so she should, she thought. “I will see to things here while you are away, Mother.”

  Now, with her cloak drawn round her shoulders, Mother Marie-Pierre hurried along the path through the copse, and then, taking the track by the river, skirted the village and joined the road beyond. As she passed behind the outlying houses, their shutters still closed against the night, her eyes searched the lanes and gardens for any sign of an early German patrol. She saw no one and could only pray no one saw her.

  Where the path met the road, she found Sister Marie-Marc and Terry, carefully attired in habit and hood, waiting in the shelter of a hedge. From a distance Mother Marie-Pierre certainly could not tell that the taller of the two nuns was a man, and even when she drew near it was not immediately apparent.

  As she came up with them she spoke in a low voice. “Everything all right?”

  “Easy,” replied Sister Marie-Marc, her eyes alight with the excitement of it all. “We slipped out of the back gate. No one saw us go, it was still dark and there were no lights on in the house.”

  “And you saw no one on the path?”

  “No, Mother. No one.”

  “Good,” replied Reverend Mother. “Now you must go back quickly and try not to be seen coming in at the gate.”

  Sister Marie-Marc shrugged. “I will collect eggs,” she said. “My naughty hens often lay outside the gate at the edge of the field.”

  “Have a care,” her superior warned, resting a hand on her arm. “This is not a game we are playing, Sister.”

  Sister Marie-Marc bowed her head slightly. “No, Mother. I’ll be careful,” she promised.

  Reverend Mother gave her a brief smile. “I know you will, Sister. God willing, I’ll be back in two days with Sister Danielle.”

  As Sister Marie-Marc turned away, Terry caught her hand. “Mercy
, Sister, mercy for everything.” Before she could pull away, he planted a kiss on her hand. She snatched her hand away, but she smiled at him before she turned back along the footpath.

  “I’d have kissed her proper, on the cheek, if it hadn’t been for this hat thing,” Terry said as he watched her go.

  “It’s a good thing that you didn’t,” remarked Mother Marie-Pierre tartly. “Nuns don’t kiss each other, and you could have been seen. Now, Sister, ground rules. Don’t speak from now on. For any reason. You never know who will overhear. If we meet anyone, let me do the talking. Keep your eyes down, don’t make eye contact, and when we are standing still anywhere, keep your hands in your sleeves. It’ll be all too easy for you to give yourself away, so concentrate on being a nun all the time, whether there is anyone there or not. And do not speak. Understood?”

  Terry Ham gave her an impish grin. “Yes, Mother,” he said in a demure voice.

  “Good,” replied Mother Marie-Pierre with asperity, “for our lives may depend on it.” Then she added, “If by any chance I address you as ma soeur, you simply nod, as if in obedience, all right?”

  “Masseur?” Terry grinned at the word.

  “It means I’m calling you ‘Sister’. All right?”

  “Masseur,” repeated Terry obediently. “I’ll remember.”

  It took them two hours to reach Albert, following the twisting lanes and taking footpaths wherever possible. At the station Mother Marie-Pierre bought two tickets for Paris, but then they had to wait for a train. No one could tell them when it would come, so they joined the crowd on the platform. The station was crowded, and there were plenty of German uniforms among the civilians. Terry did as he’d been told and stood in silence, head bowed, eyes on the ground, with his hands tucked into his sleeves.

  “Excuse me, Sister,” came a man’s voice from behind them. Mother Marie-Pierre turned sharply to find herself face-to-face with a German officer. “Please, do take my seat on the bench.” The German, who had spoken in fluent if accented French, indicated the wooden bench where he had been sitting.