The Umbrella Mouse

by Anna Fargher

  ‘Leave her alone!’ Léon squawked, diving headlong into the pigeon in an explosion of white and speckled feathers.

  Lucia shrieked in alarm, feeling the eagle’s powerful golden claws snap around her throat. Wide-eyed with panic, she frantically beat her wings and opened her talons to slash at Léon’s chest, sending Pip plummeting through the sky.

  ‘We gotcha, liddle lady!’ GI Joe cried, swooping under her.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Hans said, catching her in mid-air and dragging her up on to the pigeon’s back. Pip’s eyes fluttered open. Throwing her paws round the rat’s neck, she hugged him as tightly as she could.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, trembling in his arms.

  ‘Dear, brave little Pip,’ he said, drawing her close. ‘I won’t let anything happen to you.’

  Pip looked over his shoulder and her chest tightened with fear, seeing Léon and Lucia somersault through the sky, ripping one another’s feathers with their bloody beaks and claws.

  ‘Hurry,’ Pip said, desperately pointing at the Goliath Rats nearing the control room. ‘They’re going to turn the fence back on. Everyone will die if we don’t stop them now!’ But GI Joe raced in the opposite direction. ‘You’re going the wrong way!’ she cried, pointing to the control room. ‘Stop! We need to go that way!’

  Ignoring her, GI Joe burst forward over the fence. A few seconds brought him back to Madame Fourcade and the stag, encouraging the beavers, mice, rats and rabbits slowly picking their way through the barbed wire.

  ‘This isn’t a job for you,’ Hans said, peeling Pip off the pigeon’s back and placing her into the hedgehog’s open arms. ‘It’s too dangerous, Pip. They’ll stop at nothing to capture you and I’ll never forgive myself if that happened. I want you to find your family and get the umbrella to Italy.’

  ‘But you’re coming with me. Then you’re going back to Bavaria.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Hans said as his brow furrowed. His handsome, scarred face softened and her heart swelled in her chest, seeing his eyes glisten in the moonlight. ‘Help the others now,’ he said, motioning to the animals clambering through the fence. ‘We’ll be back soon.’

  ‘See you soon, liddle lady,’ GI Joe said, giving her an affectionate wink. ‘It’s been a pleasure.’

  Leaping from the stag’s back, GI Joe and Hans stormed over the fence into the camp once more. Ahead of them, a sentry owl charged into Léon, still bitterly brawling with Lucia in the night sky. Tumbling in the air, the eagle immediately suffered another brutal blow from a second owl who had gleefully joined the fight. Helplessly watching Hans and GI Joe soar through the moonlight towards the fight, Pip’s eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, firmly wiping a teardrop from her face as she watched the three mice clamber free of the barbed wire and race across the grass to the stag. ‘Henri, we’ve got to help them up.’

  The stag leaped to the fence and bowed his head to the earth. Hurrying down his neck to the ground and grabbing the trembling animals by the paws, Pip and Madame Fourcade pulled each one through the last tangles of the fence and guided them up the stag, now kneeling and resting his chin on the ground. The rabbits also raced up Henri’s head and along his neck to his back, where they huddled together in terror, watching the battle in the camp intensify.

  Behind the fence, GI Joe and Hans swooped above the Goliath Rats nearing the control room. Diving fearlessly through the sky with his teeth and claws bared, Hans landed on the back of the leading Goliath Rat. The other rats pounced on him and GI Joe soared upwards, targeting only Lucia. Rocketing into her with all the strength he possessed, he threw her from her savage perch on Léon, still struggling against her and four sentry owls. Lucia was knocked senseless by the blow. Tumbling through the sky in a vicious clatter of wings, the pigeons torpedoed into the two gas lamps hanging either side of the control-room door. The glass shattered on the timber wall in a grim burst of flame.

  ‘GI!’ Pip squeaked, desperately searching for him in the fire that was quickly spreading up the building beside Hans, still fiercely brawling with the Goliath Rats on his own.

  ‘Pip!’ Madame Fourcade cried firmly, pulling the last beaver free of the fence before clumsily clambering up Henri’s muzzle with her short legs. She came to a standstill on top of his head and looked down at the umbrella mouse, still on the ground. ‘Pip! Come on!’

  But Pip didn’t hear her as she watched a Goliath Rat snarl and hurl Hans on to his back as two more sprang on him.

  GI Joe suddenly burst into the fray from the flames. Beating his blackened wings with all his might, he charged into one Goliath Rat and a moment later it lay motionless on the ground.

  ‘Pip!’ Henri bellowed. ‘Climb up now! We must take cover in the woods!’

  Clambering up the fur of the stag’s cheek, she joined the hedgehog perched between his ears. As he lurched forward and stood, Henri’s head rose above the ground and Pip’s mouth fell open as she gained a clearer view of the fight behind the fence.

  The fire was now racing over the roof of the control room to the neighbouring barracks and clouded the moon with thick, black smoke. As the flames spread over the walls the barracks door’s hinges buckled in the heat. It burst open and a bony man wearing baggy trousers with a matching striped shirt appeared in the broken doorway, kicking the smouldering timber away. Looking directly at the fence, he sprinted out of the building with a group of other men. As they ran, a voice shrieked with anger from a guard tower. Suddenly a large, bright shaft of light flashed into the gloom. A moment later, shots rang out into the night and two owls swooping to attack Léon were caught in the crossfire and jerked in the sky before dropping lifelessly to the ground.

  ‘We need to get out of here,’ the stag said, diving into the cover of the forest. ‘Now!’

  ‘But what about the others?’ Pip said, looking back at Hans, GI Joe and Léon fighting the owls and the rats silhouetted against the fire, which was spreading wildly over the smoking chimney and surrounding buildings.

  More men were spilling out of their barracks and racing through the beams of the searchlights across the camp. Behind them, guards hurried into the moonlight and lifted rifles to their shoulders. As a storm of gunfire thundered across the night, Pip and the other animals drew each other close, hearing bullets hiss into the trees about them. The escaped men were leaping through the barbed wire and scaling the fence even as the metal thorns clawed at their baggy clothes. Some were already vanishing into the forest.

  ‘These poor men will be hunted, and we cannot risk the humans discovering us too,’ Madame Fourcade said urgently.

  ‘But we can’t leave without them!’ Pip sobbed.

  ‘This is war, ma petite chérie. GI, Hans and Léon are soldiers fighting for our freedom and so are we. We must get everyone to safety so we can redouble our efforts and weaken the enemy. All of us dying here means fewer soldiers on the ground at a time when we need them the most. They know that better than anyone.’

  Pip nodded reluctantly and a terrible knot of guilt formed in her chest, even as she accepted Madame Fourcade was right.

  ‘Don’t worry, chérie. Have faith. They will catch us up when they can.’

  ‘Hold on, everyone!’ Henri bellowed, swiftly turning around as all the animals on his back grabbed large tufts of his fur in their paws.

  As the stag galloped forward, Pip looked over her shoulder at her friends battling with all their strength and courage. Feeling her heart splinter, she wept, unable to tear her eyes away from them. It was then that a huge explosion rocked the air around them. The control room disappeared in a thunderous white blast and lit up the surrounding forest in a fearful orange blaze.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE CHOICE

  On their return to the hollow under the fallen tree, Noah’s Ark celebrated their friends’ rescue, with Madame Fourcade and Henri recounting what had happened long into the night. Hailed as a hero, Pip’s cheeks glowed scarlet and pink as the woodland
creatures threw her into the air, and soon tales of the little umbrella mouse and the great escape spread far and wide, inspiring courage in all animals fighting for freedom from Hitler’s snare.

  Reunited with the umbrella, Pip felt a great cold struggle she had not experienced before. In the beginning, all that mattered was that she and the umbrella reached Gignese, just like Mama and Papa had wanted. But now it wasn’t so simple. Not only had the war taken everything from her, it had changed everything she knew. It had shown her the kindness and the brutality of animals and human beings. She had seen cruelty and bravery, selfishness and self-sacrifice, and to live the same life inside the umbrella now made little sense to her. But she was an umbrella mouse. She also belonged in the Gignese museum with the only family she had left in the world.

  As the days passed, Léon, GI Joe and Hans did not come home, and a silence fell on Noah’s Ark. None felt the sorrow more than Pip, who had lost too much since the bomb had hit James Smith & Sons.

  Without Hans, she had never felt more alone, and the journey to the umbrella museum seemed impossible. Her heart throbbed with guilt every time GI Joe and Léon entered her mind, wishing she could have done something to save them. To leave Noah’s Ark and travel to Gignese now felt like a betrayal.

  One breakfast a few days after their return, the bullfinch operating the crystal radio concealed in the leafy upper boughs of the hollow, looked up and ripped the headphones from his silky black and coral head.

  ‘Madame Fourcade!’ he cried, urgently fluttering to the ground and handing the hedgehog a scribbled note. ‘I have an important message from Bernard Booth.’

  ‘Let me see,’ Madame Fourcade said, poring over the message with twinkling eyes. ‘C’est sensationnel!’ She smiled broadly. ‘Our umbrella mouse is being awarded the George Cross for acts of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger.’

  A little cry of delight echoed from the woodland creatures and, clapping their feathers and paws together, they turned to the little mouse with pride glimmering across their faces. Warmth spread over Pip’s fur as she looked at her new friends, recognizing the flame for freedom burning inside them and knowing only capture or death could tear them apart. She still couldn’t believe Hans, Léon and GI Joe were really gone, and, gazing at the umbrella, she felt the right decision thump in her heart.

  ‘Madame Fourcade,’ Pip said, stepping away from the umbrella, ‘I want to stay with Noah’s Ark and fight with you until the end of the war.’

  ‘But what about your umbrella, ma petite chérie?’ Madame Fourcade said, blinking with surprise.

  ‘I am the last surviving Hanway mouse of Bloomsbury Street and I must honour all the other Hanway mice before me and get my umbrella and myself to the museum in Italy where it belongs with my mother’s family. But I owe it to all future umbrella mice to fight so that they can live in a free world and I can’t leave you when I know I can help end the war that’s taken Hans, Léon and GI Joe from us.’

  ‘You are forgetting something, chérie,’ Madame Fourcade said, wrapping her paw around Pip’s shoulders and drawing her close. ‘We are your family too. And we must not lose hope that our friends will find their way back. It was a terrible night we will never forget and you showed great courage. We’ll need it more than ever if we’re going to win this war. I know they were very proud of you – as are we.’

  The woodland creatures nodded in agreement.

  ‘Of course, after everything you have done for us,’ the hedgehog continued, ‘we will help you get to Italy whenever you wish. I promise we will never risk the umbrella’s safety, and after we win the war, we will take you to Gignese with victory ringing in our ears! And the Allied armies are moving fast. We do not think it will be much longer before we battle for Paris and free her from the Axis snare. Then all roads lead straight to Berlin and Hitler will fall! Finally the war will be over and the world will be free. There are more adventures waiting for us, you’ll see – and you’ll love Paris, it’s the most beautiful city in the world!’

  ‘But we don’t know who will win the war.’

  ‘You must have faith that good will triumph, ma petite chérie. Otherwise, what are we fighting for?’

  Pip looked into the faces of Noah’s Ark and every creature smiled. What she was sure had been an ending had suddenly turned into a new beginning.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  SURVIVOR

  Deep in the wilds of the Venteux Mountains, bony men dismantled the remains of the southern border of the Nacht und Nebel camp, carting the ruins across the barbed-wire enclosure under the malevolent gaze of Nazi guards. Swept aside, the burned remains of rats and birds tumbled together past the tattered shoes shuffling along the ground and merged into a large pile of cinders and ash. Shovelled into a wheelbarrow, a small feathered body landed on the debris with a thump.

  Its amber eyes snapped open and darted fearfully from left to right, its heart thundering beneath its ribs. Gasping for air, the bird mustered all the strength it possessed and, stretching its blistered wings, leaped unsteadily into the air, leaving a trail of soot lingering on the breeze as it turned for home.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The Umbrella Mouse began around my twelfth birthday. My mother was in hospital and I was having trouble concentrating on a school project, writing a fictional interview with an inspirational person. Seeing me struggle, my father told me a story about my grandfather, a courageous RAF pilot who had been shot down over France in WWII and was rescued by villagers fighting with the French Resistance. During his escape, a teenage girl led him across a minefield in the dead of night, placing white handkerchiefs on the ground so he could navigate his way safely through the gloom. A number of those that helped him were killed by the military police shortly afterwards.

  I can’t remember what mark I got in that school project, but what I took from it was a strong interest in WWII, and the knowledge that stories could give me comfort and escape.

  Fifteen years later, I was living in London with an English Literature degree and an ambition to become a children’s author. One morning on my commute to work, I read some statistics revealing how little young people knew about the two world wars.

  Remembering my grandfather, I began to research the French Resistance and as I read accounts of spies using secret messages, gadgets and invisible ink, I found betrayal, daring escapes and heroic sacrifice on almost every page. I was gripped by The Imperial War Museum’s British Spy Manual and Marie-Madeleine Fourcade’s memoir, Noah’s Ark. She was about my age when she became the leader of ‘The Alliance’ – a vast intelligence network of 3,000 men and women fighting the German occupation of France. Not only was she a woman of authority living in a man’s world, she was also the mother of two young children that she put into hiding, so she could risk her life to help the cause. She assigned her members animal codenames, earning them the title ‘Noah’s Ark’, and she escaped capture twice – once by squeezing through the bars of her cell. She was my eureka moment and I chose two key members of Noah’s Ark who had moved me the most to write about: Madame Fourcade as ‘Hedgehog’ and her close ally ‘Eagle’, the group’s tragic hero, Commandant Léon Faye.

  With anthropomorphism decided, more research led me to the extraordinarily resilient pigeons awarded the Dickin Medal that honours gallant animals fighting alongside humans in war. On reading Peter Hawthorne’s The Animal Victoria Cross and Evelyn Le Chene’s Silent Heroes, a wealth of real-life animal heroes suddenly emerged, and as well as GI Joe and Bernard Booth’s army of pigeons in London, Dickin also belongs to this group. Named after the medal, he resembles Rip, London’s first search and rescue dog, and his handler Mr King appears with him. Maureen Waller’s A Family in Wartime was a valuable resource when writing their scenes.

  Lucia is based on the WWII pigeon POW, Lucia di Lammermoor, but I must add that there is no evidence to suggest she was anything other than heroic. Hans is inspired by Hans Scholl, a founding member of the German
resistance group, ‘The White Rose’, who was executed in 1943 with his sister Sophie for their opposition to the Nazi regime. Lastly, the young shop customer in Chapter One is influenced by one of my favourite authors, Judith Kerr, as a tribute to her life and work.

  A number of locations have been fictionalized for geographic and timeline purposes. The Nacht und Nebel camp is based on France’s only concentration camp, Natzweiler-Struthof in the Vosges Mountains, and refers to the codename for Hitler’s secret ‘Night and Fog’ order that was issued in response to the increased activity of resistance networks. Those arrested were either shot or taken to concentration camps. Their doom was deliberately clouded in mystery and a number of Noah’s Ark members, including Léon Faye, suffered this fate.

  The fire at the end of the book never occurred at Natzweiler-Struthof and is influenced by the Treblinka concentration camp in Poland where 200 prisoners revolted and escaped during a fire on 2nd August, 1943.

  Finally, my heroine, Pip, came to me on a train during a wet and windy morning in December. As I cursed myself for forgetting my umbrella, I stared out of the window and watched the raindrops race across the glass. They somehow reminded me of mice darting across the floor (something I knew well from my student days in London) and I wondered what it would be like, to live inside an umbrella. With the chug of the train, my thoughts drifted to James Smith & Sons Umbrellas, a shop that I often walked past, and a quick search led me to the only umbrella museum in the world, in Gignese, Italy.

  And so began my belief in intrepid umbrella mice that have made my dreams come true. Like them, I never knew what I was capable of until I tried.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Every day, I pinch myself that this book has happened. When I started writing it on my phone during my daily commute on the London Underground, I loved it so much that I would often miss my stop. It was my first attempt at a novel and I never thought it would come this far. And it wouldn’t have if it weren’t for some brilliant people I have come to know. Please bear with my gushing.