by Kit Sergeant
“Very well, very well.” Armand started writing something. After a minute, he put his pencil down and pushed the card toward Didi. He’d written, Safely arrived STOP The wireless operator you’ve been in touch with is simply wonderful STOP if you don’t mind I might try my own with her STOP.
Didi refrained from heaving a deep sigh as she took it.
“What’s wrong?” Armand asked.
“Nothing.” Didi began to code as he stood over her shoulder, his breath smelling of brandy. “It’s just that…” she searched for a possible explanation for her rudeness. “I thought we would be sending this to The Cat.”
Armand waved his hand. “Lily would only get this message second-hand and Marcel knows enough not to pass it on. She’s incredibly jealous, you know.”
Didi pretended to be intensely focused on her task. She was done in a matter of minutes and Armand remarked, the admiration clear in his voice, on how little time it took her.
“I’ve been doing this day in and day out for months now,” she replied.
“That’s your only job, to code and transmit?”
“Yes.”
He rubbed his chin, his dark eyes thoughtful. “It takes Marcel much longer. Perhaps if I found someone more adept at translating codes, it would take less time and Marcel could focus more on the transmissions.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed.
“And now, if you don’t mind, I’m starving. As I’m a foreigner, would it be too much to ask for you to accompany me to one of England’s finer restaurants? Your choice, of course.”
“Well,” Didi glanced at the clock. “It’s too dark to go far, and there’s not much around here. I suppose there might be something at the Spread-Eagle pub.” She couldn’t keep the twinge of regret out of her voice, as the last time she had frequented that particular pub was when she’d met Archie.
Armand was incredibly talkative at dinner and filled her in on the dramatic story of being picked-up by the Lysander and on the functions of Interallié in France. He had several beers, telling her that he was sick of French wine, and, with each beer, grew more animated until he began to remind Didi of a very excited child. “In France, the Gestapo is everywhere. There’s even some occupying the apartment across from Lily and I.”
“Do you live with this Lily, then?” Didi asked, swirling her sherry without drinking it. Based on this conversation and his earlier mention of Lily’s jealousy, she’d surmised that Lily was The Cat’s alter ego.
“My mother, God rest her soul,” he crossed himself, “would have never approved of me living with a woman before marriage. But Lily is my secretary, and C’est la vie. C’est la guerre,” he continued in poorly accented French.
It is life. It is war. Didi motioned for the waiter to bring the check before Armand could order another beer.
“I will be in England for a month or so,” he told her, draining the last sip of his pint. “I would like to see more of you.”
“I’m sure your agenda must be filled at this point,” she replied, hoping that was true.
“I would make time for you,” he said, his chestnut eyes so full of mirth that she couldn’t tell if he was serious.
Didi drove him back to the mansion grounds. It was well past dusk now, and she could see his grip on the door handle eventually relax as she zipped through the darkened streets with ease.
“You’re a very good driver,” he said before turning to gaze out the window. “It’s so quiet. I expected to see bombed out buildings everywhere. And there’s no German sign posts. It’s like the war has never come here.”
She slowed down as they approached the checkpoint to enter Fawley Court. “When you go to London to meet Major Buckmaster, you’ll probably see a lot more damage there.”
“You’re so smart, and I’ve never seen a woman more at ease driving during the black-out. Have you ever considered becoming an underground agent?”
“Yes.” Didi pulled into a parking spot and shut off the car. “But for some reason the SOE won’t take me.”
“They will,” Armand replied confidently. “You keep doing what you do and someday they’ll realize they have no choice but to recruit you.”
“I hope so.” Didi exited the car. “It was nice meeting you,” she continued truthfully, her earlier irritation having dissipated with his last comment.
“Same here. You know, I have my own room here. If you want, you can…”
She stretched into a fake yawn. “Not tonight, Armand. But thanks for the companionship.”
“Good night, Didi.”
“Good night.” She could feel his gaze on her back as she walked into the mansion and headed off to her attic bed.
A few days later, Didi received a strange message from Marcel.
Important STOP Marcel to Armand STOP Have serious trouble with La Chatte. She refuses to cooperate and is threatening secession STOP What should I do STOP.
“Captain Smith?” she called as soon as she’d finished decoding it. “Is Armand still on the premises?”
Smith frowned. “I think he’s in London, but I can send for him.”
“I think that would be wise.” She handed him the decoded message. He scanned it before tossing it on the table. “Right then.” He turned and headed out of the hut.
Armand reported to Didi’s station a few hours later. Without a word, she gave him the message and then watched his lips move as he read it.
He crumpled it in his hand. “I should have known. Lily is so emotional. I knew I couldn’t leave her to direct such a vast organization. She doesn’t have the physical endurance nor the proper military training.
For some reason, Didi felt indignant about him insulting The Cat. “She helped you form the network.”
“Of course, of course.” Armand was back in his highly-strung adolescent mode. “As far as the work is concerned, we are perfect partners. She finds the right people and keeps in contact with them while I know how to use them most effectively, what to ask them, and how to best utilize the news they report.”
Upon spotting Armand, Smith hurried over. “Well, what is to be done about this new development?” He nodded toward the crumpled message in Armand’s hand.
“I wasn’t aware that Lily and Marcel had bad blood, but I guess it makes sense. Marcel is the head of radio service, and he can be a little hot-headed sometimes. He probably made some remark to Lily and she overreacted to it…”
“And?” Smith demanded. “Is it serious enough that you will need to return to France?”
Armand considered for a moment before answering, “Lily can be quite temperamental. If we leave it too long, it could develop into serious trouble.”
Smith nodded. “I will start making the arrangements, though this time won’t be by a Lysander landing. As a former naval man, I’d suggest going by boat to the coast of Brittany, or the other alternative is to parachute in.”
Armand held up his hand. “As an Air Force man, I choose parachuting.”
As if suddenly remembering Didi’s presence, Smith told her to let Marcel know Armand would be back in a few days.
“And make sure you put a stop to this petty fighting within your network,” Smith cautioned Armand. “We’ve got a war to win.”
“Yes, sir!” Armand saluted Smith before the captain walked off.
“Such a shame,” Armand stated, winking at Didi. “I’m under orders to return to London tonight to finish the meeting they pulled me from to discuss this mess in Paris. I guess we won’t be having that drink after all.”
“I guess not.” She decided to ask the question that had been burning in her mind ever since she’d decoded the fateful message. “Does Interallié have other wireless operators?”
“A few, none as good as Marcel, and none of them know how to code.”
“Oh,” she said, disappointed. She wasn’t sure with whom she’d rather part ways, the operator whose Morse fist she’d gotten to know so well over the last few months, or the woman head of Interallié whose
reports had provided so much valuable information.
“Take care, Didi,” Armand said. “And good luck to you.”
“Same to you,” she called as she watched him stride away.
Chapter 15
Mathilde
Despite the somewhat wounded alliance between its co-leaders and its wireless operator, Interallié was flourishing. Mathilde was occupied day in and day out, almost too busy to think about Armand. Almost.
As soon as he came back to their apartment, looking admittedly travel-weary, she threw her arms around him. “You are back, Toto! It’s so good to see you in the flesh! Yesterday you must have still been in England and now here you are.”
Armand released her embrace to look at his watch. “Yes, at this time yesterday I was having dinner with the RAF.”
“The RAF?” Mathilde echoed, trying to hide her stung feelings at Armand’s indifference.
“The Royal Air Force,” he strode past her to look through the messages on the table. “I suppose there’s been no communication since Marcel…”
“Quit,” Mathilde filled in.
Armand went into the kitchen and fixed himself a drink before plopping into an armchair with a heavy sigh. “Well,” he said, taking a sip of his bourbon. “Tell me what happened.”
Mathilde began pacing the length of the room. “Marcel quarreled with me on several occasions over the slightest details. I think he resented a woman being in charge of him.”
“I told you before I left, Lily, you weren’t technically in charge of Marcel. He works on his own accord.”
“The network needs to be a fully functioning machine. Marcel was a nail in the tire, so I let him go.” Too late she remembered that only a few minutes previously she’d said Marcel quit.
If Armand noticed she’d changed her story, he didn’t say anything. “Again, you did not have the authority. If I had it in my power, I would hire him back, but he’s moved on. He’ll be working with the first SOE men coming in from England. It’s probably better they have one of ours anyway—I got the feeling they don’t quite know what they’re doing yet.” It was clear that Armand’s already inflated ego had grown even larger while he was in England.
She sat down across from him. “Tell me what London was like. Is it much damaged? What is the morale over there? What about the blackouts and bomb shelters… and when are they going to liberate us?”
“I would have perhaps acquired more information had I not been forced to return so quickly.”
“I’m sorry. I had no idea Marcel was going to tell you about… our little situation.”
“Listen...” Armand drank the rest of his bourbon and then set it down with a clink. “I didn’t realize this before I went to London, but we are currently the largest Resistance organization in France. While it’s a great honor, it should also inspire in all of us a sense of responsibility for the role we are playing.”
“Great honor?” His attitude was beginning to irritate her even more than the news that René had shared with her that morning. All the same, she was thankful that she now had the opportunity to change the subject. “I doubt you would say such a thing if you saw the German vans outside our apartment like René did.”
Armand frowned. “Radio detectors?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose that means it’s time to move.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We’ll have to find another safe house, and soon.”
“I’ve already found one.”
His eyes twinkled. “That’s why we make the perfect pair, you and me. Where is it?”
“A little house in Montmartre, owned by a widow of a colonel in the First World War. A Frenchwoman,” Mathilde emphasized. “I told her that my ‘cousin’ would need to be out late at night since he—you—is involved with trading on the Black Market. You know, to get by.”
He hugged her, the distance that had grown between them in the last month disappearing as their bodies touched.
The next day Mathilde led Armand to the little brick house on the Rue Villa Léandre, a little cul-de-sac of three-storied rowhouses. The rent was cheap, but Mathilde had mainly been drawn to the narrow, vineyard-ringed streets on Montmartre because, despite the intimidating presence of the Occupation, it had not lost its quintessential Parisian character.
Armand was both impressed and dismayed by the amount of intelligence that had piled up in his absence. He picked up a piece of paper off the top of the stack of papers they’d brought with them and scanned through it. “I don’t think there’s any way I could code this all by myself.”
“What do you mean?” Mathilde asked.
“With Marcel gone, I’m not sure what we’re going to do. All of our contacts are already overwrought and I wouldn’t want to trust just anyone with our code. I met this coder in England, a woman, who...” he trailed off.
Mathilde did her best to suppress a fiery feeling of jealousy at his simple mention of another woman. “What are you going to do?”
Armand replaced the paper onto the stack. “I’ll think of something.”
The next morning, Uncle Marco requested that Mathilde accompany him to Brest for a reconnaissance mission. When she returned to the red-roofed house a few days later, she found an unfamiliar woman in the living room.
“Where is Armand?” Mathilde demanded before eyeing the woman up and down. She was pale, her pathetically thin figure clad in a dowdy dress, of a style typical in provincial France.
“Who are you?” The woman’s voice held more than a hint of challenge.
“It is none of your business.” Though she longed to put this horrid woman in her place by informing her that she was Armand’s partner, Mathilde had no idea if the woman was trustworthy.
The other woman met her eyes, and the two sized each other up with equal amounts of hatred. “That’s my coat you’re wearing,” the other woman spat out.
Mathilde ran a hand up and down the sleeve, as if she were petting the fur. “It’s mine now. Armand gave it to me.”
Armand chose that moment to enter the room. “Ah, Lily, I see you’ve met Viola Borni.”
Mathilde whipped her head toward her lover. “What is she doing here?”
Armand slipped past her to stand by the woman, this Viola.
“I’m the one who helped Armand after he escaped from a POW camp and provided him with his French papers.” Viola looked up at Armand with wide eyes as she added, “They once belonged to my dead husband.”
“Is that so?” Mathilde pulled the worn fur tighter around her body before turning to Armand. “That still doesn’t explain why she is in Paris.”
“I thought she could help me code your reports now that Marcel is gone. She’s an accountant and very good with figures.”
“So she’s just your secretary.”
If it was possible for Viola to display any more animosity toward Mathilde, it happened. Her eyes narrowed into slits, she replied, “He brought me all the way here to assist him. He even offered me a room in this house.”
Mathilde held up a hand in defeat. “If that’s how you want it, Toto, then so be it.” She wasn’t going to make a scene and demand that Armand rid the house of this new woman. She had never begged a man for anything in her life, and she wasn’t about to start now. If it was so easy for her to abandon her husband, then giving up Armand should be a simple task.
Mathilde moved out of the Rue Villa Léandre house as soon as she could find an apartment, one still in Montmartre, on the Rue Cortot. She poured herself into her work, vowing to forget all about Armand and his little secretary. She still made her daily rounds to the letterboxes, particularly the one at the Café La Palette, and typed her reports of all the compiled information. She made René Aubertin bring each edition of The Cat’s reports to Armand so that Viola could code them before they were transmitted to London by their new wireless operator. Coffee in the morning and wine in the afternoon and at night helped the gnawing feeling that Armand had deserted her.
Her efforts wor
ked for a week, until Armand decided to call together his Interallié associates to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the network.
“I’m busy that night,” Mathilde snapped when Armand stopped by her apartment to invite her.
“But you have to come, Mathilde.”
She noted the absence of his pet name Lily. “No. It’s too dangerous for all of us to be together, with the Gestapo on the prowl.”
He put a tentative hand on her shoulder. “You and I were the founders of this thing. We started with two people and have grown it into hundreds—Gestapo threat or not, you have to come,” he repeated. “Plus, I have a surprise for you.”
“Will Viola be there?”
He raised his eyebrows, seeming surprised at Mathilde’s onerous tone. “Of course.”
Mathilde pursed her lips, a million questions forming as she waited for Armand to say something, perhaps deny that he had romantic feelings toward Viola or declare that he missed his black-haired mistress, his petite chatte. She’d settle for anything that resembled an apology. But he said nothing, so Mathilde let her questions die. “I will be there for Interallié,” she finally relented.
Armand nodded before he left. Mathilde went to the window and watched as he walked down the street, whistling to himself.
René took Mathilde out to dinner the night of Armand’s celebration. It was a Category B restaurant, which meant that it had a fixed menu price of less than forty francs for a meal, more than Mathilde could afford, but René had managed to scrounge some black-market money from somewhere. René carefully studied the menu before ordering the pasta. Mathilde did the same.
“What I wouldn’t give for a steak,” René commented.
“Or coffee with cream,” Mathilde said. Most restaurants were forbidden to serve coffee after three in the afternoon.
“We could have gone to one of the collaborateur cafés,” he replied. “I hear they pay no attention to rationing, serve meat on non-meat days, and charge way beyond the set prices.”