‘I have to ask what you intend for the future,’ he said, making an effort to bring the interview back to a proper footing.
‘Of course.’ Dieter found the Comte’s dignity and formality in the bizarre circumstances in which he found himself, endearing. It would, he thought, swirling his brandy around in the glass, be easy to become very fond of his future father-in-law. ‘Let me say, first of all, Comte de Valmy, that I am very much in love with Lisette.’
Henri looked across at him; startled. He had long ago judged Meyer to be a man of deep reserve and few words. He had not expected such a public declaration of his feelings.
‘Falling in love with her is not a thing that I would have done by choice,’ Dieter continued frankly. ‘But there was no choice. I met her, and though I tried hard not to, I fell in love with her.’
His eyes met Henri’s and Henri sat down suddenly in a leather winged chair. There was no denying the depth of feeling in Meyer’s voice – or the sincerity in his eyes. He was as much in love with Lisette as she was with him.
‘If only …’ he said helplessly. ‘If only you weren’t a German!’
Dieter’s lips tightened fractionally and he put down his glass on the desk, saying, ‘I am a German, Comte de Valmy, and I am very proud of being a German. But if it is of any comfort to you, I am not and never have been, a Nazi.’
The room was quiet for a long time and then Henri rose heavily to his feet. ‘Then I do not envy you your moral dilemma,’ he said quietly. ‘Goodnight, Major Meyer.’
Dieter watched him leave the room and then turned and poured himself another glass of brandy. His moral dilemma had been solved by his commitment to Black Orchestra and its avowed intention of removing Hitler from power. But Henri was right not to envy him. The strain of waiting for news from Berlin was crushing.
‘What is it Colonel von Stauffenburg intends to do? Lisette asked as they sat before a log fire in his room, waiting for the messages that followed the BBC news broadcast from Britain and that, now she was fully in his confidence, they listened to together each evening.
‘As a staff officer to General Olbricht, von Stauffenburg has access to Hitler’s conference room. He will smuggle in a bomb concealed in a briefcase.’
‘But when? Why doesn’t he do it now?’ she asked impatiently, resting her head against his chest.
‘It isn’t easy,’ Dieter said gently. ‘Hitler is pathologically suspicious of everyone around him. He changes his timetable constantly. He leaves meetings early or he does not turn up at all. But the opportunity will, eventually, present itself, and von Stauffenburg will take advantage of it.’
‘Pray God it’s soon,’ she whispered as his fingers slid caressingly through her hair. ‘Before the Allies invade and hundreds of thousands more men are killed and injured.’
Above her head his eyes were grim. It had to be soon. Every day, every hour, he expected to hear that von Stauffenburg had placed the bomb and that their mission successful. His task then was to join Rommel immediately, and escort him to Berlin. During the following three hours, communications from Hitler’s headquarters to the outside world would be severed.
The news broadcast came to an end and the messages to resistance units all over Europe began.
‘The Trojan War will not be held’; ‘Molasses tomorrow will spurt forth cognac’; ‘John has a long moustache’; the list went on and on but there was no quote from ‘The Song of Autumn’by Paul Verlaine. As the messages came to an end, Lisette hugged her knees with relief. For the invasion to be launched now, when Hitler was so near to being removed, would be the most needless and terrible waste of life. The news from Berlin had to come first.
‘How much more time can we possibly have?’ she asked, turning towards him.
He shook his head, his wheat-gold hair bronzed by the firelight. ‘I don’t know. The weather was perfect for a landing all through May. The long-term forecast now isn’t good. It could be next month before they come.’
‘And by then von Stauffenburg will have seized his chance?’
‘Yes.’ His eyes were dark. He felt isolated and cut off from his fellow conspirators. Stulpnagel was in Paris. Strolin was in Stuttgart. He needed to talk to someone to make sure that the plot was going ahead. ‘I think I will go to Paris this weekend,’ he said, his eyes narrowing as he stared into the fire. ‘I need to speak to Stulpnagel.’ His arm tightened around her. ‘And I will make arrangements for the wedding. You’ll not be able to delay telling your mother any longer.’
‘It is Papa who doesn’t want me to tell her,’ she said, as his hand cupped her breast. ‘And I promised not to. Not for a little longer.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, his voice thickening as his hand slid down and across the still flat smoothness of her stomach. ‘There will only be you and I at the wedding. And the baby …’
His lips touched her, gently and then with increasing urgency. She shivered in delight, sliding her arms up and around his neck, refusing to think of what would happen to him if the plot on Hitler’s life failed. If the conspiracy was revealed. Refusing to think of anything but the immeasurable joy of his body, hard and strong against hers. Of the heat of his lips on her hair and on her skin; of the utter delight of giving and in that giving, receiving treasures that she knew would be stored up in her heart forever.
It was a damp, misty morning when he left Valmy for Paris. She had risen early to say goodbye to him, wrapped in a blue velvet robe that had been her mother’s last Paris-bought gift for her. He had kissed her in the privacy of his study, tracing the outline of her face with his forefinger, committing every tiny nuance of gesture and expression to memory.
‘Be safe, liebling,’ he said huskily. ‘I’ll be back in three days – four at the most.’
He had walked outside to his car and she had been overcome by such a feeling of loss and of impending disaster that she had run outside after him, flinging her arms around his neck, uncaring of his watching chauffeur.
‘Be careful!’ she had urged, hugging him so tight that her arms hurt. ‘Please, please be careful!’
Gently he had lifted her arms from around his neck. ‘I’ll be careful,’ he said. ‘And I’ll be back. I give you my word.’
He had stepped away from her and into the car, and she had stood in the centre of the gravelled drive, watching until the Horch had sped down the long length of the drive and had turned right, disappearing from view. The damp had made her shiver. It was the first day of June, but it seemed to Lisette, watching Dieter speed away from her, that summer had never been further away.
That evening, alone, she listened in on his radio to the BBC news broadcast and the messages that followed. ‘Sabine has just had mumps and jaundice’said the clear, unemotional voice from London. And then: ‘The long sobs of the violins of autumn’.
She froze, her heart slamming against her chest. It came again, ‘The long sobs of the violins of autumn’, and then, ‘The children are bored on Sundays. The children are bored on Sundays.’
She could hardly breathe. Her throat was so tight that she thought she would choke. Dieter was in Paris and the invasion of Europe was imminent.
Chapter Nine
She stood for a few seconds, overcome by the enormity of the message she had just heard, and then turned, running from the room and along the long corridors to her father’s study.
He was sitting at his desk, staring bleakly down at a large-scale map of France, a glass of calvados in his hand.
‘It’s come, Papa!’ she gasped breathlessly as she burst in on him. ‘The message to the Resistance to say that the invasion is imminent!’
He looked up at her, bewildered. ‘What message? I don’t understand.’
She crossed the room towards him quickly. ‘Dieter told me of a message that the British would send immediately prior to the invasion. It is to come in two parts. The first part was broadcast from London a few minutes ago.’
Her father rose unsteadily to his feet. �
�Do you mean that you have been listening to the BBC?’ he asked incredulously. ‘Here? At Valmy?’
She nodded, the dark fall of her hair lustrous in the lamplight. ‘Yes, Papa, I listen every night. With Dieter.’
Henri passed a hand across his eyes. The punishment for the possession of a radio was fierce. Deportation to a labour camp or execution as a spy. And Lisette was not only listening in to banned broadcasts, but was doing so with a German officer! There were times when he doubted if he would ever be able to adjust to the situation between Lisette and Major Meyer. He found it far too disorientating.
‘When are they coming?’ he asked, trying to collect his scattered wits. ‘More importantly still, where are they coming?’
‘I don’t know, Papa. But the message that was broadcast was to warn the Resistance to be on the alert. To begin sabotaging rail and road links to the coast.’ Her eyes were urgent. ‘Dieter believes that the invasion will take place here in Normandy. You must leave now, Papa. You must take Maman to Balleroy.’
‘We must all go to Balleroy,’ he said, his voice shaking with emotion. ‘It will be the most massive battle in French history!’ His hands gripped hers. ‘I can hardly believe it, Lisette! After all these years of waiting and hoping. At last they’re coming! France will be free!’
She hugged him tight, knowing that he was near to tears. ‘You must leave first thing in the morning, after curfew ends. Dieter has left papers enabling you to pass freely on the roads. You will have no trouble at the check points.’
‘We will have no trouble,’ he corrected.
She drew away from him gently and shook her head. ‘No, Papa. I’m not going with you. ‘I’m going to stay at Valmy until Dieter returns.’
The exhilarated colour that had flushed his cheeks drained away, leaving him ashen. ‘You can’t stay here on your own,’ he protested. It’s unthinkable! We must either leave together or not at all!’
Her eyes held his unfalteringly. ‘No, Papa,’ she said again, with a determination that brooked no argument. ‘I’m not leaving Valmy without saying goodbye to him. Please don’t ask it of me. I will stay here until he returns and then I’ll make my own way to Balleroy.’
‘Your mother will never agree to it,’ he persisted vainly. ‘The invasion could come before you are able to leave. You could be cut off here in the middle of a battlefield. Trapped.’
‘There is no need to tell Maman of the message or what it means. Only that you are going on a visit to Balleroy and would like her to go with you. Tell her now, Papa. And Marie. You will need to leave early in the morning, before the roads become congested with troops being ferried to the coast.’
His shoulders sagged. He knew that to argue further was hopeless.
‘Is there anyone we should try and get in touch with?’ he asked defeatedly. ‘Anyone we should tell about the message?’
She shook her head, ‘No, Papa. The people for whom the message was meant will have received it and will be acting upon it. Dieter ordered the evacuation of Sainte-Marie-des-Ponts a week ago. There is nothing that we can do but wait.’
He heard the tension in her voice and his heart went out to her. He knew that she was thinking about Dieter. The battle that they had longed for that was now imminent, was one in which the man she loved could very well lose his life. He sighed again. Nothing, not even the prospect of an Allied victory, was simple any more.
‘I’ll go to tell your mother and Marie now,’ he said awkwardly, not knowing what comfort he could give her. ‘With God’s good help, this battle will be the last.’
She looked down at the map of France spread out on his desk. ‘I hope so,’ she said fiercely, her hands clenching in the pockets of her skirt until the knuckles showed white. ‘With all my heart, I hope so, Papa.’
She slept very little that night. At two she heard the familiar and distant sound of bombs falling over Cherbourg. She waited, rigid, for the attack to spread. For more planes to fly across the Channel. They did not come. The bombers dropped their nightly load and returned to England, ack-ack guns firing in their wake.
Her parents and Marie left at seven the next morning. Lisette had expected Lieutenant Halder and his men to be tense with expectation, but the activity in the chateau’s courtyard was no more hurried than normal. If they had been informed during the night that an attack was imminent, they were showing no signs of it.
‘Henri, I’m sure it isn’t necessary for me to go with you,’ her mother said protestingly as her father settled Marie and a large basket of eggs in the rear seat of the family’s battered Citroen.
‘Nevertheless, my dear, you are coming,’ Henri said firmly, glad that there was at least one female member of his family over whom he still had authority. ‘The Duboscqs have offered us shelter if we have to leave Valmy. It is only good manners that we should thank them for doing so.’
‘But Lisette will be on her own all day …’
‘Goodbye, Maman,’ Lisette said, opening the front door of the Citroen for her and kissing her cheek, ‘Don’t worry about me. I shall be perfectly all right.’
Her father slammed the rear door on Marie and looked across at her, his eyes anguished.
‘Please, Lisette … Change your mind. Come with us.’
‘No, Papa,’ she said with the same firmness with which he had spoken to her mother. ‘I shall be perfectly safe at Valmy. And I shall be with you very soon. I promise.’
Her mother was winding down the window, looking up at her curiously, and Lisette knew that in another moment her suspicions would be roused. She stood back, flashing them a brilliant smile, waving cheerfully. ‘Goodbye Papa … Maman, Goodbye Marie.’
Her father stepped heavily into the driving seat and revved the engine. There was nothing more he could do. Her mind was made up and nothing on God’s earth would change it. His responsibility was now to his wife. It was better that Heloise was at Balleroy and that Lisette had promised to join them there, than that Heloise, too, should remain at Valmy and run the risk of being caught in the middle of a bloody and murderous battle.
The Citroen, unused for nearly two years, creaked into life and rolled and jolted over the cobbles of the courtyard towards the stone archway that led out on to the linden-flanked drive beyond.
She waved until it had disappeared, as she had waved when Dieter had left. This time her isolation was complete. There was no one for her to talk to now. Not even Marie. She turned swiftly on her heel and walked quickly back to Valmy. Lieutenant Halder would know that her parents and Marie had left Valmy and that she was alone. It was not a pleasant thought. She wondered how long it would be before Dieter returned. He would have heard the message last night as she had done. With luck, he would be back by lunchtime, perhaps even earlier.
She made herself a cup of chicory and stood sipping it in the kitchen. Nothing that she had expected to happen was happening. There was no sign of alarm. No black staff cars screaming down the drive. No telephones were ringing. And lunchtime came and went, and Dieter did not return.
The turret room gave the best view over the windswept headland and the sea. She stood at the deep, embrasured window for hour after hour, but the Channel remained empty of ships, the waves heaving and surging with a heavy swell. Dusk fell and she returned to the kitchen and made herself an omelette and then, tense with expectation, she tuned the radio into the BBC London.
Through the whining and roar of static she listened to the news and then the familiar voice from across the Channel said in perfect French, ‘Kindly listen now to a few personal messages.’
Lisette sat on the floor, hugging her knees as message after message was broadcast and then at last it came. ‘The long sobs of the violins of autumn’. She waited, the breath so tight in her chest that she could hardly breathe. No second part came. The first line of Paul Verlaine’s poem was repeated and then another, entirely different message, was broadcast.
She turned off the radio and let out her breath unsteadily. It hadn’t come.
Perhaps German intelligence had been misled. Perhaps there wasn’t a second part to the message at all. Perhaps the message did not even mean what they believed it to mean. With her head aching, she walked back down the winding stone stairs to her own room. She had told her father that all they could do was to wait. And the waiting, for a little longer at least, would have to continue.
It continued for far longer than she had anticipated. All through the next long, lonely day, German activity continued as normal in and around Valmy. That night the message was broadcast again, as was a message for all French residents living along the coast: ‘You are urged to abandon your homes temporarily and move far inland to a safe place,’ a solemn British voice intoned. ‘Repeat: you are urged …’
But Dieter did not return and the Germans at Valmy betrayed no signs of apprehension.
On the Sunday night there was a fierce storm. Tiles on Valmy’s roofs were hurled to the ground. Gale-force winds rattled the deep-set windows and hurled sheet after sheet of rain against the leaded panes. Lisette lay in bed, listening to the roar of the distant waves in despair. A fleet could not set sail in such ferocious weather. It could be days before the Channel was calm again. And then the tide would perhaps be wrong for a landing. Dieter had told her that there was only a few days a months when the tide and moon would be right for the Allies. Was that why he had not speedily returned to Valmy? Did he know that in spite of the message a landing was impossible?
She pummelled her pillow and tried, once again, to sleep. It was impossible. He had left Valmy intent on speeding up Black Orchestra’s plans to annihilate Hitler. In the three days that he had been away, he could have been arrested. Even killed. She had no way of knowing what was happening to him. She could only wait – and wait – and wait.
Never Leave Me Page 15