by Sharon Maas
Chapter 12
The night was silver with moonshine. The Lysander stood ready and waiting on the airstrip at Tangmere, a camouflaged aerodrome in rural Bedfordshire. Sibyl had spent her last night on British soil at Hazell’s Hall; she had been unable to sleep and now it was time to depart.
Unexpectedly, a jeep drove up and Vera stepped out. During their last preparatory meeting Vera had offered Sibyl suicide pills, capsules of cyanide which could be sewn into her clothing, to be taken in case of emergency. Sibyl had refused. ‘I don’t think I could ever commit suicide,’ she said. But Vera had pressed them on her. ‘You never know. Be prepared,’ she said. So Sibyl took them; they were hidden in her backpack.
Now, Vera pressed a box into her hands. ‘A gift from F Section.’ Sibyl opened it; inside was a gold powder compact. On its underside were engraved the words Fabriqué en France.
It was shiny, new and feminine, in complete contrast to her camouflage jumpsuit. Sibyl was so touched she flung her arms around Vera. ‘Thank you! Thank you for everything!’ she said. Vera hugged her back. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘for everything.’
Vera held both her hands; they were still for a moment; it was almost a moment of contemplation, of prayer. Then Vera spoke again.
‘One last word. It is top secret, for the time being, but it might give you a further boost of courage. It is this: an invasion is immanent. It will happen, before long; it could be a matter of a week, or two, or of days. But it will happen. We will win this war. We are winning.’
The pilot’s name was Dennis Beeks, and he was to be her permanent pilot for deliveries to the Alsace. The plane was already loaded: weapons, explosives, detonators, a radio. Sibyl’s heart raced. She was sure Vera could hear it; if so, she didn’t let it show, but signalled for her to climb into the plane. She turned and walked away.
The Lysander had a fixed metal ladder and the door at the top gaped open, jaws ready to swallow her into a new life. Dennis gave her a thumbs-up.
‘Lizzie’s ready, if you are. Let’s go for it.’
She grinned weakly and nodded to reassure herself as much as Dennis. Grabbing hold of the ladder, she climbed in, settled herself and clicked her seatbelt into its lock. The plane began to purr, the propellers to rotate, slowly at first, and then whisking the dark air. It jerked into movement. Rolled down the airstrip. Lysanders were the chosen plane for this work as they needed very little room for take-offs and landings: a pocket-handkerchief of a field would do, and Sibyl knew that was where she would be dropped, along with the supplies.
The Lysander flew only to the north of France, as part of the Moon Squadron, so called because it could only fly on the moonlit nights of the month, and those when the moon was not covered by clouds. The harvest moon had been gaining strength for five days, and was at possibly its brightest; it would be their only light. Dennis would have to fly low, to avoid enemy radar, and also to find his destination by sight-reading his way across the north of France. They would detour over Belgium and Luxembourg, rather than travelling as the crow flies, to avoid the Vosges mountains to the east of Alsace. The Lysander carried no radar or instruments. It all came down to the pilot’s expertise and knowledge of the land, how well he was able to find his way by picking out the shine of rivers and lakes, railway lines, church steeples, villages and towns. Sibyl trusted Dennis; but she also knew that this was his first mission to the Alsace, his first flight beyond the Vosges. The idea terrified her; but she reined in that terror, took a deep breath, and told herself it has to be done. He knows his job. Trust him.
Sibyl knew also that there had been elaborate plans laid for this, her arrival in France. She would be met and taken to Strasbourg and from there take a train to Colmar. Agents from the French Action Militaire as well as the American intelligence had liaised with one of the Resistance fighters to organise the landing near a village south-west of Strasbourg. A field had been chosen and Resistance fighters would be there waving torches as soon as they heard Lizzie’s hum; she would land, and then the supplies would be landed. Yes, she had practised, but only three times. And yes, this particular location was safe. Yet still her heart pounded like a jackhammer as the plane made a first small circle. Below, lamps indicated the landing field, placed there by the maquisards receiving her. Dennis indicated it was time to put on her parachute and then – in just a few seconds – jump. Into France.
She jumped. Or rather, she let herself fall. Into her new life.
* * *
Hands pulled away the parachute shrouding. Someone was leaning over her. A light shone between their two faces. And then:
‘Sibi!’
‘Jacques!’
On French soil for not even a minute, and she had already broken the cardinal rule.
She had used a real name. And so had he.
Chapter 13
Later, she wondered how she had recognised him. She hadn’t changed much over the last ten years; she had simply matured in looks. But Jacques!
Back in 1935, when she’d been torn away from Alsace, Sibyl had been twelve and Jacques fifteen: a fresh-faced youth bursting with joie de vivre, with an indefatigable, indestructible trust in life; a young man so in tune with nature he could feel grapes ripening in his blood and carried the phases of the moon in his rhythm of his heart. Jacques had taken her, taken then all, up into the Vosges mountains and they had slept on the bare ground and drunk from springs with water as clear as air and tasting of moss and earth. He had placed unknown sweet berries on her tongue, and warned her against others. He knew which mushrooms could be carefully picked and cooked them in a battered old saucepan, over a fire he’d made from flintstone, and the children had feasted on such meals and felt like royalty. Jacques knew all birds by their call and could hear their piping when no-one else could; his very soul seemed a mirror that reflected all the gifts of nature and his eyes had glowed with this love of life.
Now, ten years later, he was a haggard shadow of that youth, a spectre.
He was thin, so thin his cheekbones protruded like blunt blades, below which the straggles of a beard only barely concealed the edges of his chin. His hair was long, unkempt, almost to his shoulders, hanging in greasy strands pushed back behind his ears. On his head, the inevitable beret, but an ancient one, its grey wool matted. His clothes looked similarly ancient, unwashed and far too big for him, hanging listlessly on his emaciated frame.
Only his eyes had not changed. They were as fiery as ever, alight with a zeal that, though it may have changed course, burned as bright as it always had. Back then, that fire had been lit by a simple, unfettered passion for life itself, a perfect unity with nature that shone through every pore of his skin but mostly burned as loving kindness in his gaze; you felt it deep within when that gaze rested on you. At least, she had felt it deep within. His health, his youth and that inner light had made him glorious.
And somehow, it was still there, burning just as brightly but covered with another thing, a dark thing, a dangerous thing. It was an ember glowing beneath a veneer of darkness. The darkness veiled but could not extinguish the fire. It was the very same fire. She had recognised it instinctively; a spark leaping within their gaze as he bent down to help her up, and their eyes met that first moment, and those forbidden words, their names, the taboo words, had burst spontaneously, simultaneously, from their lips: ‘Sibi!’ ‘Jacques!’
He was no longer glorious. But he was here, before her, in a different guise, a different form, but he was the same; that fire was the same. She had felt, known, in that moment. But she had been well trained, and pulled herself instantly together, and her second word was ‘Acrobat.’
He nodded. ‘Acrobat.’ He tugged gently beneath her armpits so that in a trice she was standing, running with him into the dark shadow beyond the field which was the protection of trees, and they melted into that shadow while dark running shapes cut across the field to the parachute, balled it up and ran back with it to safety.
‘Wait,’ said Sibyl to
Jacques, ‘I am supposed to bury my parachute!’
‘Leave them! They are salvaging the silk for their girlfriends to make precious things, lingerie and sheets and wedding dresses.’
‘And what about you? Will they give you some for your girlfriend?’
‘I do not have a girlfriend. Come, Sibyl. Do not fret about this. Let us go.’
He took her hand and led her, running, into the cover of the forest trees. She sighed and ran with him. And so, even before they had left the landing field, Sibyl had broken two cardinal rules from her handbook. If this was her example of leadership, then it was a bad beginning.
Later, when they were safe within the walls of a dilapidated wooden cabin hidden away in the woods – Jacques, Sibyl remembered, had always been good at finding dilapidated cabins, ruined stone huts hidden away in the woods – they talked. Nothing personal, at first, while the other men were with them; just instructions and tomorrow’s plans and technical details of what was to happen. Then the others settled down for a few hours’ sleep before dawn broke, on the bare earth, covering themselves with old ragged blankets for the night was more than chilly, it was cold. They seemed not to mind. And Jacques and Sibyl broke the rules again. They talked; of the past and of the present and of the predicament they all were in, every Frenchman and every Englishwoman, every person whom this cursed war had reached out to touch with its fingers of death and destruction.
Sibyl and Jacques leant against the wall of the cabin. They had eaten; some cheese and some old bread. He had offered her wine, which she drank from a cracked mug clasped in her hands. His eyes held hers through the darkness. His voice was low. He spoke French.
She wanted to know about the Laroches, and what had become of them.
‘This war has torn that family apart,’ said Jacques, in a whisper so soft she had to lean close to hear. ‘When the Bosch invaded they tried to make us all German. Most of us resisted. Some didn’t. Marie-Claire, she married a high-ranking German officer, a Nazi. She thought it would help her family to have that connection. Instead it broke Margaux’s heart. Made her more radical than ever. Marie-Claire is not allowed inside the home any more – she is banned. Collaborators are not liked in Alsace or anywhere in France.
‘As for Leon and Lucien: all the young men in Alsace were conscripted by the Wehrmacht, Sibi! They were taken away against their will; they call themselves the malgré-nous, in-spite-of-ourselves. If they refuse to go their families are sent to concentration camps. I managed to escape in time. Leon didn’t. He was sent to the Eastern Front and nobody has heard from him since the invasion. We don’t know if he is dead or alive. Lucien was removed and made to join Hitler Youth. We don’t know where he is either. Victoire – well, she is the only hope of that family! She’s very young still but she’s a fighter, a lover of Alsace. She will never give in, give up. She is like her mother.’
‘And you? How did you escape the Wehrmacht?’
‘I escaped over the Vosges. I know them like the back of my hand. I went over the Col du Donon mountain pass. There has been much fighting going on there between the Americans and the Germans but I knew a route more to the south and that is the way I went. I made my way to Metz by foot and then to Verdun and met up with a Resistance group and they hid me for a while and I learnt some of their tactics. But then I returned, the way I came. I was determined to build my own Resistance group here in Alsace. We are rather disorganised but we do not lack in passion and courage what we lack in weapons and ammunition and explosives and food and just about everything a man needs to defend his territory.’
‘And your sister? Juliette?’
Jacques turned very still. He closed his eyes. Finally he said:
‘My sister is dead. She went to university in Strasbourg and there she fell in love with a Jewish student. Jakob. A very fine young man. When they started to deport the Jews Juliette tried to run away with him. She followed one of my old trails over the Vosges into France. They were captured near the border and shot on the spot. Executed.’
Sibyl gasped in shock.
‘Oh, Jacques!’
She wanted to say she was sorry, but sorry was inadequate and meaningless. Tears rushed to her eyes, spilled out. Jacques reached out, wiped them away with his fingers.
‘It’s awful I know but that is what we are living with these last few years. This horror. This nightmare. We must put an end to it, Sibi!’
‘Well, that’s where I come in, isn’t it! But we must stop using our real names. We are professionals. You must call me Acrobat One; though since it is only me you can drop the One.’
‘Welcome to Alsace, Acrobat! Or should I say, welcome back. It has been a long time.’
‘And I must call you by your field name – what is it?’
‘My men call me Dolch. Dagger.’
‘No. That won’t do. Nothing that can identify you.’
‘Then – how about – David. He who killed Goliath. As I will destroy the Boche.’
‘Yes – with your slingshot!’
Sibyl by now had finished her wine and her hand rested on her knee. Jacques took it and pressed it. It was not a romantic move. It was a move of deepest friendship and alliance, and it joined their hearts in an alloy stronger than anything Sibyl had ever felt before. It was as if a common spirit ran through them both, a common life. One life, two bodies. One passion, one goal. The moment felt so intimate she could hardly breathe; had to break that intimacy.
‘And Oncle Jean-Pierre? What of him? He always warned this would happen.’
‘Jean-Pierre went to Paris after the invasion. He had to, as a non-Alsatian, but he wanted to. The Bosch evacuated all non-Alsatians, Jean-Pierre among them. The whole of Strasbourg was evacuated. They took away the Jews. We don’t know what happened to them. They were just thrown out and put on trains. Do you remember Leah?’
‘The help? Yes, of course. I liked her.’
‘Did you know she was Jewish? Margaux managed to hide her. The Gestapo came asking if they had any Jews and Margaux denied it. She could have been killed if they’d found her! They hid her in the cellar, in that room where they hid the good wine. Remember?’
‘Yes – I remember. But how did they feed her? It was so dark in there!’
‘Margaux built a hidden trapdoor into that part of the cellar. So she had access not only to Leah but also to the best wine.’
‘Trust Margaux to think about the best wine, even in wartime!’
‘Wine is important, Sibyl. It is a valuable commodity. The Boche is crazy about French wine. One of the first things they did when they annexed Alsace was to seize great stores of wine. They did this all over France. They sent tens of thousands of barrels to the Third Reich and ordered the conversion of thousands of hectares of vineyards into war production. Margaux’s vineyard has been requisitioned; she still manages the vineyard but her wine must now go to Germany, not to France. She was clever to hide the best wine. As for my father, normally they would have sent him to a camp because his son – that’s me – is a deserter from the German army. But he is winemaker; it is a protected profession. He has to work to produce wine for the Boche. Can you imagine how angry he is? But he has to do it. However, he too has his tricks to prevent them getting the best wine, just like Margaux. Good wine represents luxury to the Boche. They covet it; it represents fine living, superior living, to them. But they are so primitive, their palates so undeveloped, they cannot tell the difference. They are tricked into getting the second-class and third-class wine and we keep the best from them. Winemakers are doing this all over France. It is a question of national pride. The Boche have humiliated France but the French humiliate them in secret by fooling them with wine. It is a method of war. Unfortunately it has to be kept a secret but at least we know we are doing it and it restores a bit of self-respect to us. It is a war of wine, and it’s a war the Boche will not win; not when it comes to French wine.’
‘So Leah is still down there, with the best wine?’
�
�No. Margaux managed to get in touch with a Resistance group that helps Jews escape. They go over that same Col du Donon I first escaped by; I was able to show them the way. Once in occupied France there is a route down through the south into Vichy territory and then Spain. Leah got away. A few other Jews from Colmar and Strasbourg escaped this way as well. Margaux is part of the Resistance movement to help Jews. She has a safe house.’
‘Oh! I was told that I might have to help get Jews to a safe house. So it’s Margaux’s home?’
‘There are a few others in Strasbourg and Colmar but hers is the one they all end up at before they are escorted into France. She is wonderful. She’d love to see you, I’m sure.’
‘I’d love to see her too but there is no time. When the war is over and this charade is behind me. For now, Jacques, there is work to do. I am supposed to train your people.’
‘I know. We will discuss the logistics of that in the morning. But I have told you all about what has happened here in Alsace any you have told me nothing about yourself and how you ended up here. It is your turn to talk, Sibi. I mean, Acrobat. Oh, damn. I cannot call you Acrobat. You remain Sibi.’
‘But only when we are alone. There’s not much to tell. I trained as a nurse and then I was recruited for this job. It is my first mission. And I am a little nervous about it.’
‘No need to be nervous. You will do well; of that I’m sure.’
They talked for a while about the work. Quietly, in barely more than whispers. The others were fast asleep, light snores and gentle breathing filled the cabin. Sibyl felt rested, comforted, her anxiety relieved; not a bit tired, but enlivened, alert, awake. But finally, Jacques said, ‘Now, let us sleep. Here is an old blanket for you. I am afraid it is very old, and may stink a little, and does not offer much protection from the cold.’