by Anne Bennett
‘And you say men and woman too?’ Gabrielle asked, as Bridgette brought in a tray with their breakfast on.
‘That’s what a couple of the men were saying after Mass,’ Bridgette said, as she helped her mother sit up in the bed ‘They watched it all through field glasses and said the prisoners looked half starved and some could barely walk.’
‘But what are these places for?’
‘I don’t know, Maman. But I know this much: whatever they are doing in these places is probably not good news for the rest of us.’ She placed the tray across her mother’s knees as she spoke. ‘And now let us eat this while it’s hot. You need to keep your strength up in this weather because, for all it’s almost February, it’s just as chilly as it ever was.’
The following day there was another air raid, which seemed again to be targeting Eperlecques Forest. This was followed by another five days later, and another five days after that. In March there were also raids much closer to the town, so close that the windows in the bakery sometimes rattled. Bridgette realised the new construction was being bombed, and these attacks went on through March and into April.
It was hard not to be unnerved when the throbbing drone of many planes could be heard overhead, followed by ear-splitting explosions but she tried to speak reassuringly to her mother.
In mid-April as she was returning home with the shopping, Bridgette was alarmed to see Charles appear from a shop doorway and fall into step beside her.
‘What do you want?’ she said. ‘I told you I can do no more.’
‘I need a favour.’
‘I can’t help you. You know how I’m placed.’
‘There isn’t anyone else I can ask.’
‘There must be.’
‘D’you think I’d be here if there was?’
‘Charles, stop this,’ Bridgette said heatedly. ‘It isn’t fair to ask me, really it isn’t. My mother has only weeks to live.’
‘The person I am talking about might have only hours,’ Charles said grimly. ‘He’s a British agent. We were getting him out, but the escape route has been rumbled. Worse than that, someone has talked and so the Nazis know that he’s here. At least, they know he landed in this area. You could hide him until we could find a safe route out.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Charles said. ‘If they start house-to-house searches, they will find this British man and when they have finished torturing him, he will be glad to die, and so will the people who are harbouring him at the moment.’
‘I know that. So why should I take him into my house and risk that?’
‘Because your house will not be searched.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because your father and brother are collaborators and informers.’
‘You know that?’ Bridgette breathed.
‘I make it my business to know,’ Charles said. ‘And when the war is over, they will pay, as all traitors will pay.’
Bridgette shivered from the look of sheer hatred in Charles dark eyes. ‘Don’t glare at me that way, I’ll not try to stop you,’ she said. ‘I would rather help you. I would like that pair to get their just deserts.’
‘Ah yes, but that is for later,’ Charles said. ‘The bakery is about the safest house in the town. Your father and brother as thick as thieves with the German officers, and your mother terminally ill with TB.’
‘But that is why—’
Charles reached out and grasped Bridgette’s arm. ‘Ask your mother before she dies, does she want to do this noble thing? Many lives will be saved if she does, and not just the British man’s. The Germans have obscene ways of making a person talk and this could break the Resistance cell wide open. And it will only be for a week or maybe two until we can get another route organised.’
‘Charles—’
‘Ask her,’ Charles said. ‘Surely you owe her that. I will meet you here, same time tomorrow, for your answer.’
He was gone before Bridgette could say another word. She couldn’t do it. Anyone could see that. Charles was a fanatic. Nagging at her, however, was the fate of them all if she refused, and she knew the guilt that she had condemned them all to death would lodge on her conscience for ever.
Gabrielle knew every beat of Bridgette’s heart and so was well aware that something was bothering her. ‘Let me help you while I am able?’ she said later that day. ‘Tell me what you are fretting over and remember when a person is dying, nothing is too bad to hear. Your whole perspective changes.’
Gabrielle knew her mother was right and so with a sigh she sat on the bed and told her everything about her involvement with the Resistance. It was what Gabrielle had feared and yet she was so proud of her brave daughter.
Bridgette held her mother’s eyes as she went on, ‘I told Charles that I could no longer be in the Resistance when I came to look after you. He fully understood and then today I met him again and he asked me to hide a British agent. The Germans found out about the escape route to get him home, and Charles asked if I would hide him until they can make other arrangements.’
‘Do they know that he is here?’ Gabrielle asked.
‘Well, they know that he is in this general area.’ Bridgette said. ‘And I quite understand, and so will Charles, if you feel that you can’t do this.’
Gabrielle knew what she wanted to say, and that was to bring the agent here immediately. For her it wouldn’t matter if it were discovered what they had done—a dying woman views risk in a totally different way—but it was dangerous for her daughter.
‘What if he should be found?’ she asked. ‘What would they do to you?’
Bridgette shivered. ‘You don’t want to know.’
‘Well, won’t they turn the town upside down to find him? If they search everyone’s house, there is nowhere for him to hide here.’
‘Charles doesn’t think they would ever search the bakery,’ Bridgette said. ‘They know about my father and Georges’s involvement with the Germans, and think that they are the last people they would expect to harbour an enemy agent.’
‘Yes, I see that.’ Gabrielle nodded. ‘And if they’re right, and if this British man is willing to risk TB, then he can bide here in comparative safety until the Resistance can get him out.’
‘You do know what you are saying, Maman.’
‘Of course I do,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Tell this Charles that the man can come here for now.’
When Bridgette told Charles this the following day, he was noticeably relieved. ‘He is risking catching TB,’ Bridgette said.
‘Yes, as you do every day,’ Charles commented drily. ‘Speed is essential. The Germans have already searched all the farmhouses around the area where he landed. Next I believe they will start on the town. His name is James Carmichael and I will deliver him to your house this evening, just as soon as we make certain where your father and Georges are.’
‘Come through the bakery,’ Bridgette said. ‘I will be waiting for your knock.’
‘It will be after curfew when the streets are dark.’
‘It doesn’t matter what time it is,’ Bridgette said. ‘I will be waiting.’
She was waiting, and opened the door immediately. Charles didn’t go in with the Englishman and neither did any of them speak. However, with the door closed Bridgette whispered, ‘I will not risk putting the light on, but if you follow behind me then you should be all right.’
The man didn’t answer but did as Bridgette advised. It was only when they reached the relative safety of Gabrielle’s room that Bridgette had a good look at the man and she liked what she saw. James Carmichael had an open, honest face. His deep brown eyes matched his hair, and his mouth looked almost gentle. Looking at him, she knew instinctively that he was a man to be trusted.
The man, on the other hand, was stunned at the whole set-up. When the escape plan had fallen through, everyone had been flummoxed as to where to hide him, especially when the Gestapo were so quickly on his tail. It was the
sallow man known as Charles that said that he might know of somewhere. And here he was, in the bedroom of a dying woman tended by her daughter, who he thought one of the most stunning women he had ever seen.
Charles had filled him in on the details. ‘Bridgette is a very courageous girl,’ he told Carmichael. ‘She used to be a member of the Resistance herself before her mother’s illness, and the two of them will be fully supportive of you.’
‘What of her father?’
‘Both her father and brother are Nazi sympathisers,’ Charles had said. ‘The chances are that their house won’t be searched because they are so pro-German, but there is no guarantee. Don’t forget the risk they are running hiding you in the house, which is at least as great as yours.’
‘Yes,’ the man said. ‘I know that, and I know that you are doing your level best to help me.’
‘No matter,’ Charles said with a shrug. ‘Many are short tempered these days. Maybe I am one of them.’
Charles’s words came back to James Carmichael as he gazed around the room. He approached Gabrielle in the bed and in his basic and faltering French began to tell her and Bridgette, standing beside her, how grateful he was to them both.
Gabrielle smiled as she said in English, ‘You can talk in your native tongue, if it is easier for you. Both my daughter and I understand and speak it.’
‘My French is not a tenth as good as your English,’ the man said, ‘for all they gave me a crash course before they dropped me over here.’
‘Ah,’ said Bridgette with a smile. ‘But you see we learned to speak English from childhood, Mr Carmichael.’
‘Oh, please call me James,’ the man said extending his hand. ‘Charles told me your name is Bridgette.
‘That’s right. And this is my mother, Gabrielle.’
‘I am so pleased to meet you both,’ James said. ‘And so incredibly grateful that you have agreed to hide me at great risk to yourselves, especially,’ he said to Gabrielle, ‘as I understand your husband is a Nazi sympathiser.’
‘He is, to my great shame,’ Gabrielle said. ‘And my stepson too. But there is no need to worry, my husband is so afraid of my illness that he never comes further than the threshold. He shares a room now with my stepson, who never comes near me at all. However, they are very friendly with the German officers, often feeding them information about their own neighbours, customers, many of them, at the bakery. It is a despicable thing to do, and we both hope he pays for it when the war is over, but just for now it makes this house one of the safest in the town.’
‘Despite all that, it is a grave risk you are both running,’ James said. ‘What if he does find out I’m here?’
‘The only time you have to talk very quietly or not at all is when my father or brother are on this floor and might overhear you,’ Bridgette said. ‘The bakery is too far away, and he and Georges go out every evening, so it is moderately safe if we are all careful.’
‘If you don’t mind, I feel very tired all of a sudden,’ Gabrielle said. Bridgette could see the lines of fatigue etched on her mother’s face and realised that the unusual animation that she had shown in front of James had exhausted her. She guessed that she might suffer for it the next day too.
Gabrielle had neither the will nor the breath to speak further. Bridgette could hear the rattle of her chest and the sound of her laboured breathing as she clutched at the air and she signed for James to follow her from the room and into her own along the corridor. ‘What of your father?’ James said.
‘He’s not in yet,’ Bridgette replied. ‘Believe me you will know when Georges and my father are home. In fact, even before they reach home you will probably hear them coming along the street. Sorry about the boxes,’ she said, lifting them up off the bed so that they could sit down. ‘They are full of clothes that might fit you. I asked my father-in-law to bring them down for me. He brought the bedroll he used in the Great War too so you haven’t got to lie on the floor.’ She caught sight of James’s face and said, ‘it is all right. He came at dusk and made sure that no one saw him bring the things in.’
‘It’s not that,’ James said. ‘Well, not that entirely. I was just under the impression that the fewer people know about me the better.’
‘And so it is,’ Bridgette said. ‘But the Laurents had to know. I was living with them when I began with the Resistance, you see, and so I had to ask them if they minded. Sometimes the families of Resistance fighters are punished too. Anyway, my mother- and sister-in-law like to visit Maman and would think it very odd if I said they couldn’t come—and how else would I get hold of Xavier’s clothes.’
‘Xavier? Is that the name of your husband?’
‘Yes,’ Bridgette answered quietly.
‘But won’t he want any of these things? James asked, pulling some out of one of the boxes.
‘I don’t think so,’ Bridgette said quietly. ‘His was one of the bodies left on the beaches of Dunkirk.’
‘Oh, Bridgette, I am sorry.’
Bridgette shrugged. ‘I hoped some of them might fit you.’
‘And you won’t mind me wearing them.’
‘Why should I?’
‘You might find it upsetting.’
Bridgette shook her head. ‘The fact that Xavier died is upsetting,’ she said. ‘The fact that I haven’t even a grave to tend is upsetting.’ She looked at James. ‘Are you married?’
James nodded. ‘I was. I married a lovely girl, Sarah, in 1937. She wanted a family straightaway, but I saw the writing on the wall in 1938 and wanted to wait a while. Anyway, when war was declared and I joined up she went to live with my parents.’
‘Where was that?’
‘A place called Sutton Coldfield, which is just outside Birmingham in England,’ James said. ‘Although Birmingham was hammered, Sutton Coldfield was virtually free of bombing raids, but Sarah wanted to do her bit.’ He smiled sadly and said, ‘She wrote and told me what she intended because she heard that the Jewellery Quarter, which is very near the centre of Birmingham, had converted to making radar parts and as she had always been good with her hands, she wanted to try for a job there.’
He paused and then went on, ‘I wasn’t pleased at first, but she said she had nothing to do all day, and radar parts were needed, and then reminded me that I was doing my bit so wasn’t it unreasonable of me to try and prevent her from doing the same.’ He stopped and smiled at little sadly. ‘She was right. All over Britain, girls and women are doing the jobs that men used to do, even driving buses and trucks and dirty work in factories.’
‘What happened to your wife, James?’
‘She was caught in a raid on her way home one autumn night in 1940 and the public shelter she was taken to took a direct hit,’ James said. ‘My parents wrote and told me. Killed outright, they said.’
‘So you had no family then?’
James shook his head. ‘Have you any children?’
‘No,’ Bridgette said, ‘I was pregnant with my first baby when news came of Xavier’s death and I miscarried the child.’
‘Oh my dear girl,’ James said, and the genuine sympathy in his voice caused the tears to prickle in Bridgette’s eyes.
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Now look what you have started, and I can hear my father and Georges carousing their way home. So you must be quiet. My room is better for you to stay in because it has a powerful bolt on the door that I fix in place every night. It will probably feel strange for me though, for I’ve never slept in a room with a man since my husband.’
James grinned at her. ‘Sleep is all I’m after,’ he whispered. ‘And I will turn my back when you wish to get undressed.’
A few minutes later they lay side by side, Bridgette in the bed and James on the bedroll on the floor. She heard her father and Georges stumbling about as they did most nights but James slept on oblivious to it all. Sleep eluded Bridgette, though, as she went over the events of that evening. She was glad that she had eventually agreed to hide James, though she hoped soon that
they would be able to ship him safely back home, and she eventually went to sleep with that thought running round her head.
NINETEEN
Bridgette woke the next morning before the alarm went off, as she did most mornings, and she shut it off before it should wake the man still slumbering beside her bed. Since she’d returned home, she had slept much easier in her bed with the bolt in place each night, though she doubted that even Georges would dare to enter her room now. When she had arrived at the house to nurse her mother, she had told him about the large bolt immediately.
‘I don’t have to say why,’ she’d said, looking fixedly at him. ‘You try violating me again and I will go straight to the police. There are laws about that sort of thing, you know.’
‘I never touched you.’
‘No, of course you didn’t,’ Bridgette said sarcastically. ‘You must love a little fantasy in your life.’
‘I wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole,’ Georges said disparagingly.
‘Good,’ Bridgette said. ‘Keep it that way and it will suit us both.’
Georges had given Bridgette a wide berth after that, but she still took no chances and would be doubly careful while James was there. From the door she surveyed the room. James had tucked himself at the side of her bed from which he couldn’t be seen from the doorway, A person would have to go into the room to see the bed made up on the floor. Fully satisfied with that, Bridgette closed the door and went down to make breakfast for them all.
When her father and Georges had eaten their fill and had gone down to the bakery, and the girl had arrived to open the shop, she made breakfast for her mother, James and herself and went in to tell him the coast was clear. James had tucked the bedroll and blankets neatly under her bed and the clothes he had been wearing the day before he had left on the chair beside the bed. He was wearing a shirt and trousers that had once belonged to Xavier.