by Will Belford
‘Bloody cats!’ he swore, ‘why does this idiot woman leave the window open?’ He stomped across the room and swung the shutters closed with a bang, then walked out slamming the door behind him.
‘Merde! This bloody job! Bloody war! Bloody Germans!’ Yvette heard him shout to himself as he walked down the corridor.
She crept out again and drew from her pocket the cosh that Marcel had given her. It seemed so small, but she knew it worked – he had made her practice with it for hours, walking the corridor wearing his service helmet so she could work out the best angle of approach and get used to hitting a man’s head accurately. After the second night of practice, in which she’d landed half a dozen pulverising strokes on the crown of the helmet, he called an end to it.
Cosh in hand, she crept through the door and looked right. Out in the courtyard, grossly exaggerated shadows danced on the wall as Sergeant Gallien walked, the oil lantern flickering and swinging in his hand.
She listened to his footsteps and counted them as he stepped ponderously into the corridor, down the row of cells and back, across the courtyard and straight past her where she crouched behind the door, turned and walked back again to the guardroom. She’d heard him making this round every hour for six hours now. An overly-diligent guard for such an inconsequential prison she thought, but he was conscientious, she gave him that. Shame she had to knock him out really, he didn’t deserve it. She would have preferred it to be one of the Germans, but they left such mundane tasks as night duty to the French.
She heard him turn and walk back. Now was the time. She took a deep breath, clutched the cosh tight and, as his footsteps passed the door, swung it open gently and stepped out into the courtyard.
The moonlight illuminated him clearly. Two steps brought her close behind him and she swung the cosh up and brought it down hard on the sergeant’s head.
There was a sound like an eggshell cracking under the impact of a teaspoon and the man’s legs crumpled beneath him and he collapsed in a heap. Yvette grabbed him under the armpits and hauled him into the cleaner’s room. He was heavy, a dead weight, and she wondered for second if she’d killed him. Once she had him inside she closed the door and put her ear to his mouth. Still breathing at least. She checked his head. No blood that she could see, just a large and misshapen lump.
She grabbed the bag from the cupboard, pulled out a length of old cloth and tied it around his mouth, then removed two lengths of rope and tied his hands and his ankles together behind his back. Trussed like a chicken now, she dragged him across the floor and tried to heave his inert body into the cupboard. It was like pushing a mound of sand: as she got one leg in, an arm would flop out; if she got the torso in, a leg would fall out.
‘Damn it you French bastard!’ she whispered, ‘get in there!’ She gave the limp body a despairing last thrust and slammed the cupboard door. A single arm was preventing the doors closing and she kicked it inside then thrust the bolt across.
The doors bulged, but it would have to do. Through the shutters she could see the faint greying of the dawn.
~ ~ ~
He must have fallen into a restless slumber, because the next thing Joe knew, hands were shaking him awake and a girl’s voice was hissing ‘Joe! Joe! Wake up!’ urgently in his ear.
Joe sat up abruptly. There was no mistaking that voice, but it was with a sense of bewilderment that he beheld Yvette crouched beside his cot, her face tense, still gripping his forearm and shaking it.
‘Sssshhhhh!’ she whispered fiercely as he opened his mouth to speak, ‘there is no time to talk, you must come with me now.’
Out in the corridor the other cell doors were closed, but the gate at the end hung slightly ajar. Slipping through it, Yvette pushed him to the right, where the guardroom lay open and empty.
‘This way,’ she whispered.
They emerged into the central courtyard and Joe glanced skyward reflexively. An offshore breeze was blowing, and high above, fat clouds floated past, gleaming in the moonlight.
Yvette opened the side-door that Joe knew led into the laundry and gestured him inside.
Where was the guard? He wondered. As far as he’d been able to tell there was always one on duty at night, in case of emergency.
The laundry was black, but Yvette’s grip on his arm directed Joe across to the wall where he barked his shins on an obstacle. His exploratory hand brushed across the grid of what felt like a cane basket.
‘Get in and curl up as much as you can,’ she whispered, lifting the lid, but before he could move she grasped his head and pulled him to her, crushing his lips to hers.
‘Yvette...’ began Joe.
‘Get in!’ she hissed and pushed him away.
Clambering over the lip of the giant basket he heard her rummaging nearby and as he lay down, a pile of unwashed sheets tumbled down over him. He pushed the cloth away from his mouth so he could breathe and felt several more layers piled on top, then her voice came, muffled through the rough linen.
‘I will see you outside in the morning. Stay silent whatever happens.’
Then the door closed and all was silence.
~ ~ ~
As a boy, Joe had become accustomed to waiting. Whether it was hoping for a bite on a fishing line, hunting wild pigs or sitting on a horse for three hours riding home from a muster, he thought he was fairly patient. The next hour tested that patience like nothing had before.
The bottom of the basket was rough and bumpy, it dug into his hips and back and for a time he twisted and struggled before realising that no position was better than any other. The worst of it was trying to breathe: every inhalation tickled and he found himself snorting and rubbing his nose just to prevent himself sneezing.
How had she known he was here? How had she got in? How had she managed to get the key to his cell? The fear of the mortal danger she had put herself in for his sake welled up, and once again he felt the peculiar shame and guilt he had experienced in Roubaix when he’d watched the Germans drag her away, helpless to prevent it.
After a time chewing over this he gave himself a mental slap in the face.
‘Wake up Dean,’ he said to himself, ‘don’t ask questions, just be thankful.’
He began to recite ‘The Man from Snowy River’ to himself in an effort to pass the time. Not because he particularly liked the poem, which he found a bit sentimental, but because his schoolmaster had made him and the rest of his class learn it by heart, all thousand-odd words of it.
He’d just reached his fourth recitation of “Through the stringybarks and saplings, on the rough and broken ground” when he heard a door clang shut and voices outside.
The door to the laundry opened, and Joe felt strong hands lift the basket at each end.
‘Merde this is heavy. Have they decided to wash the entire prison’s laundry in one day?’ came a gruff voice from one end of the basket.
‘Oui, les Boches said our standard of cleanliness was not high enough,’ said a voice Joe recognised as one of the French prison guards, ‘the new cleaning girl said they had ordered her to wash everything twice over,’ Joe could almost hear the man’s Gallic shrug, ‘they are crazy. One day they come in here and destroy everything, the next they are reprimanding us for a little grime, in a gaol of all places. It’s not as if it’s a hospital.’
The other man only grunted, and Joe saw faint daylight through the cracks in the basket as they entered the courtyard. The basket was manhandled upwards and dropped onto a hard surface. Joe suppressed a grunt as a jolt of pain shot through his left hip.
The smell of horse dung filtered through and Joe heard the familiar language of a man talking to his horse, then the basket started forward, only to stop abruptly seconds later.
‘Halt,’ came the German voice.
‘Ach Hans, can’t you leave Tulip alone?,’ came the voice of the cart driver.
‘Mein schatz,’ said the guard, ‘here, I have an apple for you.’
‘You are spoiling her with your apples,’ said the carter, ‘now she turns up her nose at my oats, unless I starve her for a few hours.’
The dust in the bottom of the basket, shaken up by the movement, was swirling in Joe’s nostrils and he pinched them shut and clamped a hand over his mouth to suppress the sneeze. The pressure in his chest and throat made spots swim before his eyes, but he managed to hold it back.
‘Come on you idiot,’ he cursed to himself, ‘get this bloody thing moving.’
‘How old is she?’ asked the German in fractured French, then lapsing into German, ‘she reminds me of my own little mare on the farm in Pomerania.’
‘How old? Thirteen,’ said the cart driver, ‘and still going strong God bless her.’
‘Off you go then,’ said the German, ‘guten tag.’
Joe felt another sneeze building as the horse stepped towards the gate and he held it as best he could. With all his strength he pushed down on his nose and chest.
~ ~ ~
Madame Fevrier looked at the decrepit clock on the wall of her tiny apartment: 5.45am. She sniggered to herself as she thought of the pathetic trustfulness of the girl. Who would put her faith in a total stranger? Didn’t she know there was a war on? One thing Madame Fevrier had learnt in the last war was that no-one was to be trusted.
She scratched at the dry skin on the palms of her hands, forever itchy and peeling from the washing water. By now the girl would have freed her ‘beloved’ from his cell and put him in the basket. All it would take was a phone call to the Commandant and the whole hopeless attempt would be foiled. She would stand there wringing her hands and looking sympathetic as the girl was led away, enjoying the bitter-sweet taste of malice and twisted vengeance. The prospect cheered her as she knelt, crossed herself and started on her rosary.
She had only reached the fifth bead when the pounding on the door began.
‘Achtung! Achtung! Offne die Tur!’ came the shouted command.
She jumped with shock and ran to the door. When she opened it, two German soldiers armed with submachine guns burst in, bowling her over onto the floor. They were followed by a lieutenant.
‘You are Madame Fevrier?’ demanded the officer.
‘Oui m’sieu, but…’
‘Silenz!’ screamed the man, ‘you have been denounced as a Jew. Move!’ and he gestured at the door.
‘But, but I am not Jewish!’ she remonstrated as she tried to stand, ‘who has denounced me?’
‘You need not know that,’ said the German, ‘but I can tell you it is someone we trust, now get moving.’
The old woman hauled herself up and walked through the door of her flat. She’d heard enough stories to know where she would be going next.
Chapter Sixteen
The sneeze came anyway. Suppressed as it was it didn’t sound much like a human noise.
‘Ach Tulip,’ said the guard, waving his hand before his nose and looking up at the carter, ‘you’ve been feeding her too many oats.’
‘Oats?’ said the carter, ‘if I had any oats, I’d be the one doing the farting.’
And the horse clopped steadily on out of the gate, drawing the cart behind it. At a little after 6am, it drew up in the laneway at the rear of the laundry. The horse lifted its tail and deposited a large pile of dung on the cobbles, then turned its head and looked accusingly at the driver.
‘Oui, oui, hold on a moment can’t you, you impatient bitch?’ said the man, grabbing the nose bag and jumping down.
Fitting the nosebag over the mare’s head, he stroked her ears fondly and gave her a kiss on her broad forehead. The mare gazed back at him with her big brown eyes, already pre-occupied with masticating the first mouthful of grass. She would have preferred oats, but she hadn’t had them for a long time now.
Around the corner of the alley, Yvette and Marcel waited until the carter walked into the back of the laundry.
‘Now! Quickly!’ said Yvette.
They ran up to the cart and she leapt up and threw open the lid of the basket. A huge sneeze greeted her.
‘Joe!’ she whispered, ‘it’s safe to come out.’
Joe’s tousled head emerged from beneath the pile of sheets. He hauled himself out and together they jumped down. Marcel threw a cloak around his shoulders and stuck a non-descript old hat onto his head.
‘Let’s go, but don’t run!’ cautioned Marcel, ‘just walk normally towards the end of the lane.’
At that moment the carter emerged from the laundry’s back door with a small Vietnamese man.
‘Bonjour,’ said Marcel, setting off down the laneway.
‘Bonjour,’ said the carter as the two men came out, seized the basket and dragged it off the cart.
‘It’s not heavy at all!’ said the Vietnamese man, ‘you’re losing your strength mon ami.’
‘Merde,’ spat the carter, ‘it must be all this rationing. Fancy a drink?’
‘A bit early isn’t it?’ said the Vietnamese man.
‘Those rules don’t apply since we lost the war,’ said the carter.
He pulled a flask from his pocket and the two men carried the basket inside.
‘By Christ Yvette, you’ve got some nerve,’ said Joe as they walked away, ‘thank you, thank you for getting me out of there.’
‘Say nothing until we are inside,’ she muttered, looking around suspiciously, ‘it is not safe out here.’
They walked steadily down the road, arm-in-arm, Marcel a few metres ahead, seemingly unconnected.
‘When we reach the corner, turn left and keep your head down, ‘ said Yvette, ‘if we’re stopped by the Germans now ...’
After an interminable period of exposure, they reached a small house set back from the road, and Yvette turned in, taking a key and opening the door.
It was a humble house of three rooms, bare wooden floors and a fireplace full of cold ash. As Yvette closed the door, Joe took her in his arms and kissed her passionately.
‘Thank you! Thank you Yvette!’ he said as their lips parted, ‘My God, that was bloody horrible.’ He thought of telling her of Hagan Schmidt, but he knew that would only give her worse nightmares, so he kept his peace and instead said ‘How on Earth did you manage it?’
‘In the end it was not that difficult,’ said Yvette, ‘I appealed to the romantic spirit of a Frenchwoman and the head of a Frenchman.’
There was a quick triple knock on the back door and Marcel came in. He sat down, filled his pipe and lit it.
‘So Anglais, you are out thanks to the courage of this girl,’ he said in English, ‘but what are we to do with you now then, eh?’
‘You look vaguely familiar sir. Have we met?’ asked Joe.
‘Ha, you don’t recognise me,’ said the man with a laugh, ‘we met m’sieu, on the road to Cap Gris Nez. You had just hijacked a German staff car I believe.’
‘And was about to let Richter escape and then be captured by the Germans,’ said Joe bitterly.
‘Never let that bother you,’ said the man. ‘Now you can call me Marcel. I am no-one now, but until a few months ago I was a Capitan on the General Staff under Marshal Gamelin.’
Joe looked at him with new respect, noticing for the first time the way he held himself, the small signs of a military bearing drilled into a man for years.
‘Excuse-mois m’sieur,’ said Joe switching to French, ‘I had no idea I was in such distinguished company.’
‘Distinguished? Ha!’ laughed Marcel, reaching for a bottle and three glasses on a nearby shelf, ‘there was nothing distinguished about the way our front collapsed in June.’
‘That’s not true sir, I fought with many brave Frenchmen in that retreat, it was only by their defence that I was able to escape from Dunkirk.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Marcel, pouring them all a generous glass of a pungent green fluid, ‘but you are talking of the French soldier, not of the general staff. The men fought as well as they could, but the
real problem was at the top, not the bottom. But it is all history now, and students will pore over it all in years to come, and no doubt novelists will write stories full of courage and self-sacrifice to make the defeat a little more palatable. Yet a defeat it was.’
He downed his glass and poured another.
‘Still, we must not let the mistakes of the past deter us from the victories of the future, eh?’ he said with a smile, ‘one of which we have had today. Mademoiselle, I bow to your courage.’
He stood and raised his glass in a toast.
‘May all the women of France be as brave as you Yvette Bendine. Now, Chartreuse!’ and he knocked back the glass in one shot and slumped in his chair.
‘Enough Marcel,’ said Yvette, ‘we have work to do.’
‘Oui, oui,’ said Marcel, pouring himself another glass and re-lighting his pipe. Joe took the opportunity to empty his glass and the spirit seared its welcome way down his throat.
‘Now mon cher,’ said Yvette, taking Joe’s arm and looking into his face, ‘your English officers have told us by radio that there will be a boat waiting for you off Cap Gris Nez every day for an hour before dawn for the next week. You can get home Joe.’
He looked into her dark eyes and stopped the words even as they formed in his mouth. He’d asked her to go with him once before—was it really only a few months before?—and he knew there was no point in asking again.
Then Marcel took his pipe out of his mouth.
‘But, if you still want Richter you have a choice to make. We have discovered that he was transferred yesterday to Paris.’
‘Paris?’ said Joe, ‘so the story we made up that night turned out to be true?’ He shook his head wonderingly, ‘well, I’ve always wanted to climb the Eiffel Tower.’
‘I doubt this trip will provide much time for sightseeing,’ said Marcel, ‘if you make it there at all. We have had papers prepared for you and Yvette just in case you are willing to do it. But of course, we perfectly understand if you prefer to go back to England.’
Joe said nothing.