Hunting Ground

by J. Robert Janes

  The land sloped steeply up into the forest. Icy water covered the ditches on either side of tracks, down which a German patrol had stopped.

  I pushed the bicycle towards them. In my coat pocket, I clutched one of the leftover grenades from Dunkerque that Paul Tessier had given me to deliver to the others. Once the pin was out, I would need count to three but me, I wouldn’t throw it. I’d not let them take me.

  ‘Ihre Papiere. Papiere, bitte, Fräulein.’

  They’d come down out of the forest to cross the railway line. There were eight of them: two with Schmeissers, the rest with Mauser rifles, their sergeant in the lead.

  I leaned the bike against me and handed my papers over. In broken French with bits of Deutsch, I told them I was on my way to the village of Ury.

  ‘But you live near Fontainebleau?’ he managed. He was really suspicious, this Feldwebel.

  I was still clutching the grenade, but found the will to say, ‘Ja, Herr Oberst, ja, but this route it is shorter, and I must visit some old people to see how they’re getting along.’

  Curtly, he nodded at the bike. ‘What’s in the carrier basket?’

  ‘Food for them and for meine Kinder, ja?’

  Five other grenades, three pistols, and a small quantity of ammunition, again from Dunkerque in 1940 and via the marché noir since. Also one stripped-down, stolen Schmeisser and the regulation two magazines that were with it.

  ‘Und Apfelmost,’ he said.

  The cider I’d left out, plain as day, nestled in cloth, a favourite of les Allemands. ‘It’s so hard to get these days.’

  He held up one of the bottles, put it to the sun. I waited. I heard myself saying, ‘Bitte, Herr Oberst, please put that back. It’s my daughter’s birthday, and I want it to be a surprise.’

  He did. He betrayed that he knew a little more French than I’d given him credit for and slid that bottle into its nest and wished me a good day. Until I was almost out of sight, I knew they were watching me, but I didn’t turn to look back at them and wave.

  Then I reached the clearing and pushed the bike up into the forest to meet the road that came by there. It was the first of many patrols, and I knew they must be on the lookout for someone.

  The millpond is dark, the geese timid. One slips and goes down on its bum. The others raise a racket and stretch their necks.

  At last, a few succeed in reaching open water and the gander ushers the rest of them in. Henri Poulin is talking to Schiller and Dupuis, only Schiller’s not in uniform—he was that day I came up here from Ury in the late autumn of 1941. A staff car was parked on the road, it’s driver polishing the chrome.

  But Schiller acts as though he’s still in uniform and, of course, Dupuis is still subservient, deferring always to the other, some habits being simply too hard to break.

  Tommy … I knew they were after Tommy, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it except to go home.

  They’ve used André de Verville’s car, have taken it from in front of the house, but as if in the present, though well in the past, I hear, ‘Lily, wait! Don’t turn around. We’re right behind you.’

  Nicki said that I must lead a charmed life and that I had the most interesting friends. ‘Those two in particular,’ he said. ‘Schiller and Dupuis.’

  I turn. I have to, and, of course, Tommy and Nicki aren’t here. How could they be? It’s not the autumn of 1941; it’s four years later, but I must remember the robbery because for us, everything changed after that.

  ** Curfew times were often changed at will, though generally settled down to the above.

  9

  Below me, down a tumbled slope through trees whose autumn leaves have fallen, Schiller and Dupuis are picking their way among some boulders. Schiller’s older. Mon Dieu, he’s iron grey and looks unhealthy, but is he also afraid because I’m the only thing that stands between him and the hangman? Is he remembering how it was?

  Dupuis, though just as shabby as before, has obviously been eating as he did during the Occupation, ration tickets or no tickets, simply shopkeepers and maître d’s who wanted to please, cash, too, of course, and the never spoken, always present threat of Sûreté muscle.

  Both have drawn their guns and I could perhaps kill them, but that would be too easy. They chased me on the road in that car of theirs back in the autumn of 1941, and I took a little detour. The Fontainebleau Forest is full of such things—side roads, woodcutter’s trails, hiking paths, those of the kings themselves. Les Monts des Chèvres, the Mountains of the Goats, that’s what this place is called.

  They’ve remembered what I’ve remembered. Schiller found it then, and as I look down on them, it’s the lieutenant who looks questioningly up towards where I’m still hidden. Perhaps two hundred metres separate us, not just the years, the camps, and everything else. He’s thin, stooped and pale, so gaunt lines crease that narrow face, the scar glistening even more, but the right eye is also all but closed. Shrapnel, I wonder? The Russian front, but well after the robbery, after the interrogations, the beatings, and the torture, right at the end in 1945 and in or near a Berlin that was being mercilessly destroyed.

  ‘She’s not here,’ says Dupuis. How I remember that voice.

  ‘I’m sure I saw something. What about that woodcutter’s hut? It was up there, back of that ridge.’

  That’s also a voice that brings instant apprehension, but it’s Dupuis who says, ‘She’s got a bicycle just like in the late autumn of 1941. Is it that you’re forgetting this?’

  ‘You sound as if you don’t want us to go up there after her.’

  Dupuis shakes his head and stuffs his pistol away. ‘I’m merely stating the obvious. That one knows the woods, and we’re still together. If she can draw us out and separate us, she will because she wants to have a word alone with each of us first.’

  ‘We’ve nothing to say to her; she nothing to us.’

  ‘You’re forgetting her French side. De Verville got his little lecture. For myself, I think she might not even have wanted to kill him. Far better a very public humiliation and Résistance trial.’

  He’s only partially right about André, but it’s Schiller who snorts and says, ‘You French were always so weak. Follow if you like. I’m going up to the hut.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s what she really wants.’

  They begin to climb. It’s not difficult, a few boulders and gullies, and certainly I could let them have the grenade, but a stone will do just as well since they must be made to feel it as we did: hunted and in absolute terror for their lives.

  That bouncing stone whistles past Dupuis who cries out and buries his head in his arms as Schiller laughs and says, ‘Dummkopf, a loose rock! Where would she have got a grenade? Plucked it from the trees?’

  ‘Sacré nom de nom, she may still have friends and could have made contact!’

  In spite of this, they continue, but take the main gully that leads away from me. Just as they have thought, I do have my bicycle, but it’s hidden in a hollow beneath a covering leaves. It’s beside the trail that leads to the hut and when they reach the top, they walk right past it, just as they did back then.

  Dupuis, however, stands back as much as possible and lets Schiller nudge the door open, but both must stoop to enter and it’ll be dark in there, for there are no windows, not even a stovepipe hole, and if I had the Schmeisser assembled, I could give them a couple of bursts and terrify the hell out of them, but the bicycle will be as safe as it was before and I can come back for it later.

  Sacrificing one bullet from the Luger, I place it in the middle of the trail where they’re sure to find it notched.

  Due north of the Mountains of the Goats, there’s the Rock of the Salamander—quaint, isn’t it, to have such names? Now I’m perhaps a kilometre to the north of the woodcutter’s hut and among tall oaks, and from here, I’ll walk across a tableland to find the copse of cedars with its moss-covered boulders that’s still so clear in memory.

  Even the lean-to Tommy and Nicki used i
s where they left it, the roof now a webbing of dry and seasoned sticks. There’s evidence of a last campfire whose ashes are damp as I bring a pinch to my nose and shut my eyes. Immediately, as in the camps with all those dead and dying people around me, I’m right back here in time with Tommy, who fed his tiny fire with such love and care, and sat to one side of it, Nicki to the other. The map Paul Tessier had given me that day in Nemours had been spread on the ground. ‘The train is to leave Paris at four thirty in the afternoon, 10 November,’ I told them. ‘It’s to be a mixed one of goods and passengers.’

  ‘How many of each?’ asked Tommy.

  ‘Eight of passengers, twenty-two of goods. The passenger carriages will come first.’

  ‘And the shipment?’ asked Nicki.

  ‘Somewhere among the others. This our railwaymen won’t know until the train is finally made up. Right now the truck is sitting on a siding at the Gare de Lyon.’

  So it was anyone’s guess where it would be located in the train. ‘What about machine-guns and extra guards?’ asked Tommy.

  ‘Probably, but none that we know of as yet, just the usual antiaircraft gun on its flatbed, but this, I think the Boche will want to keep as far from the art treasures as possible.’

  ‘What about the dummy railway truck?’ asked Nicki. ‘Will our railwaymen be able to make the switch?’

  It was to wait on a siding near Bourron-Marlotte. ‘That’s out. There are no spares.’

  ‘And the cutting torch?’ asked Tommy.

  ‘Clateau has promised one from the garage in Barbizon, but must have it back well before dawn.’

  ‘And if he doesn’t manage to get it?’ asked Nicki.

  ‘Cold chisels, hammers, and explosives if necessary. Once the truck is located, the rest of the train ahead can be released and sent on down the line. Only two trains a day regularly use that route, so there should be lots time between them for ours.’

  It was Nicki who said, ‘What’s to prevent the engineer from stopping near La Chapelle-la-Reine and getting a warning out?’

  This little village is about four kilometres to the south-southwest of Ury. ‘Dmitry will have cut the wires by then,’ said Tommy. ‘We have to trust him, Nicki. It’s all been arranged.’

  ‘That Bolshevik?’ said Nicki. ‘There’s far too much at stake for us to trust him.’

  ‘Listen, you two, it’s crazy anyway for us to attempt this. You’ve got to call it off. Paul’s certain it could be a trap.’

  ‘Tessier and those railway boys are just nervous, Lily,’ said another whose voice I knew well enough. ‘There are crates and crates of artwork waiting to be shipped to the Reich from the Jeu de Paume and the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg. It’s too good an opportunity. Dmitry’s one of us, Nicki. Me, I can guarantee him.’

  I turned and my sister was there behind me, having watched my back without my knowing. There was a Walther P38 in her right hand, and I had to ask myself, Has she slept with Dmitry, and I had to answer, Probably. ‘Why does it have to be done, Nini?’

  Unfortunately, those lovely dark eyes flashed a fierceness I’d never seen before. ‘Because for us, it’s to be the catalyst. A whole train, Lily. Pour l’amour de Dieu, think of it, will you? No one has ever done such a thing. When word gets out, other réseaux will be sure to form and we’ll be stopping trains everywhere!’

  ‘What she means, Lily, is that London wants us to pull this off,’ said Tommy dryly.

  Anxiously, I looked at Nicki who said, ‘To go forward, though, we’ll absolutely need you to help us.’

  ‘Me? Hey, monsieur, aren’t I too well known?’

  ‘Lily, that train has to be made to stop just before it’s switched on to the other line. That way it will be starting up and we can jump aboard just a little later, so you must get on at Avon. You can purchase a ticket for Saint-Léger, the crossing that is just to the south of Bourron-Marlotte. That doesn’t require an Ausweis for you, so no one will question it.’

  ‘Except the one who sells the tickets and the ones who punch them. You’re all crazy. There are German railway police on all of our trains; French ones, too.’

  Again, it was Janine who insisted ‘We can’t chance its not stopping, can we?’

  ‘Tommy … Tommy, it’s impossible for me. I’d need a very good excuse to get off at that little place. The Germans are bound to question it. Schiller …’

  ‘She’s right,’ said Nicki. ‘We’ll have to think of something else.’

  ‘No we won’t,’ said Janine. ‘She needs wax to finish Göring’s sculpture and can easily visit the beekeeper in Saint-Léger.’

  She had thought it all out beforehand. ‘Wax … Ah, merde, I …’ Why must she do that to me? ‘All right, I’ll do it. I can take my bike with me and still be home in time for curfew if I hurry.’

  ‘Lorries?’ asked Nicki. ‘What about them?’

  ‘We’ll “borrow” them from the Wehrmacht,’ said Nini. ‘There’s a driver I know who can be bought. I’ll tell him to bring a friend and make him an offer he can’t refuse.’ Herself.

  ‘We have lorries enough of our own. Would you insult their owners?’

  Clateau and Matthieu Fayelle. ‘Of course not. We’ll use theirs as well, but the German ones will offer perfect cover. Now you’d better get home. Say hello to the children and give them each a big hug for me.’

  Jules has moved the body of Madame Vuitton, though Schiller and Dupuis haven’t yet returned with André’s car, but the past still tugs and I can’t let go. It was the morning after I left Tommy and the others. Jean-Guy had given me a message and it took me down the road.

  ‘Georges, what is it you want of me?’

  He gave a whack with the axe, and the head of another rabbit fell. ‘Madame, I must speak with you.’ Whack, and it was the front paws that time, then the hind ones.

  ‘So speak.’ Merde, had he an endless supply of rabbits?

  ‘The wife saw that sister of yours in the forest today. Janine, she was with two men.’

  ‘Since when has my sister not been with men? They were hikers probably.’

  The skin was slipped off. Blood dripped from his hands. ‘They didn’t look like those to me.’

  So he’d seen them too, had he? ‘Perhaps they were friends from Paris, but Nini hasn’t said anything of them.’

  ‘The one came here before the war, madame. I’m sure of it.’

  I shrugged. I didn’t turn away nor avert my gaze from him, but had to wonder why Georges hadn’t let Dupuis know, and concluded he wanted something else.

  It was not long in coming. ‘These times, they’re not easy, madame. Monsieur Jules … Sometimes he forgets to pay us.’

  Ah, bon, but had he really given me a possible hold over him? ‘Perhaps I could help. The Germans give me an allowance for their rooms and meals.’ It was an opener and he saw this, but I’d have to offer something else to pry the rest out of him.

  ‘One hundred thousand francs?’ he asked.

  I wanted to fiercely object but couldn’t look in the least surprised. ‘That much, if necessary. Yes, I could manage that. I would have to go to Oberst Neumann, but there shouldn’t be too much of a problem.’

  This caused him to grind his false teeth. ‘Not the Oberst, madame, nor Obersturmführer Schiller.’

  To show a little surprise was then best. ‘Georges, are you asking me to pay for your silence, and that of Tante Marie?’

  Again, he lifted that axe. Again, another rabbit lost its head and then its paws. Again, blood drained on to the chopping block as he paused to study me and I had to ask myself, Does he think the Boche might now lose the war, and if so, is this the only chance he’ll get to ask me because I’ll soon be taken away and Jules will never know about the money he’s demanded?

  Salaud, I wanted to cry at him but reason intruded. Capitulating, I told him, ‘Okay. You’ll have it in a few days.’

  ‘Tonight, madame.’

  Cher Jésus, what the hell was this? He was in far too m
uch of a hurry and that could only mean he knew far more than he was letting on. ‘Georges, I can’t possibly get it that fast and you know it.’

  ‘Then take some of the silver. There’s so much of it, a little won’t be missed.’

  ‘One hundred thousand francs’ worth?’

  ‘A little more, I think, since it isn’t cash and time will be necessary to dispose of it properly.’

  ‘On the marché noir, is this what you mean?’

  There was no answer, just the ruthless emptying of the rabbits, the kidneys, the livers, and the hearts being picked out. ‘All right, there’s some jewellery from the old monsieur’s mistress—I’m sure you and Tante Marie must have seen some of it in days gone by. Perhaps if I were to …’

  ‘That would be fine, but the silver also.’

  November’s nights were damp and cold. It was the fifth, and in a few days I’d help to rob a train, but Georges and Tante Marie only made my worries greater. Long ago, it seems, I’d taken them some silver—a gorgeous tureen we never used, a sauceboat with cherubs and angels, salt and pepper cellars, some of the jewellery, also. A diamond pin, a brooch with studded seed pearls, some cufflinks of old Monsieur de St-Germain’s that Jules was saving for Jean-Guy, a small handful of rings, a topaz, an opal—those may well have been fake, but I knew I couldn’t leave it another day. Something had to be done, you understand? Please, you must. You see I had the lives of everyone to consider, not just those of my children, or of Tommy even. Nini had gone back to Paris; Tommy and Nicki were at mother’s. Paul Tessier and the others would be counting the hours.

  Schiller and Neumann were away, Rudi Swartz fast asleep, and even from my kitchen I could hear his snoring.

  Jean-Guy and Marie would sleep through anything, but would Georges be out trapping rabbits or watching the house again?

  Dressing in dark clothing and bare feet, I took from the cellars the six bottles of petrol I had carefully hoarded before the war and its subsequent Occupation. I found some rags.

  Clouds closed over the moon. It was perhaps two a.m., and there was a heavy frost that hung along the road and over the adjacent meadow, and as the moon crept out, an ethereal light made the frost ghostly. I was alone, and dear God, would I be able to bring myself to do it?