by Sharon Maas
‘That’s all right.’
They both lay down, facing the wall. Jacques gently drew her close, and whispered in her ear, ‘I will keep you warm.’
They fell silent. Then Jacques stirred. Sibyl turned around to face him; in the dark she could just make out that he had raised himself up on his elbow, his head resting on his hand.
‘Sibi,’ he whispered, ‘je suis bien content. It is a miracle that you are here. The past months, the past years – they have been terrible, hell. This war is hell. But you – I have been in despair lately but I prayed and then you fell from the sky as if in answer to my prayer, like a ray of light shining through the darkness. That sounds so sentimental and kitschy but that is exactly how it feels. It is marvellous. For so many years the only emotion I have known is hate. Hate for the Boche. Hatred has filled me, burned me up. But now you have fallen out of the sky and – and I feel the opposite of hate and it is like coming out of the winter to sit by a warm fireplace. I feel such peace, such healing. I know it’s not a manly thing to say but emotionally I am full, satisfied, for the first time in so many years, and just because you have come, you are here. It is such a miracle. I have been praying for a miracle for so long and I thought it would be a miracle of war, a military victory. Instead it is you. You are the miracle. I have to tell you this. I cannot sleep; I have to tell you because I am so full, so overflowing, so content. Thank you.’
All she could see of him was a dark outline, a shadow darker than the darkness. And the whites of his eyes in the darkness.
‘I feel the same,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t know, I never expected, that I would meet you here. Of course, I hoped to run into you when I came to Alsace and when the war is over and my job is done I would have looked for you and Margaux and the others. But to find you now, already – it is indeed a miracle.’
He squeezed her hand. But then he became urgent, perturbed.
‘Sibi, sit up! Je t’en prie! We must talk about this seriously!’
She scrambled into sitting position; his urgency was infectious. He clasped both of her hands in his, firmly. His eyes shone white through the darkness. He whispered still, but the urgency came not from volume but from the words themselves, and their content.
‘Sibi, chérie – we are not here for pleasure. In spite of this moment of joy we must be aware that we have a job to do. We will do it together and that is a wonderful miracle. We cannot jeopardise the miracle of our collaboration. We must be professional at all times. Yes, it is an emotional reunion but we are living in dangerous times and we cannot be ruled by emotion. We are up against Goliath and we must be as pure-hearted and single-minded as David if we are to win. The Boche has raped my country and that is why I am here now, why you are here now. I have given my life to this struggle and I will fight it to the death – my own life is of no account. I have before my eyes that poor boy, Marcel Weinum, who was executed by the Boche. I have met his parents and promised them he did not die in vain. He is a martyr to the cause and I will fight this cause to the death. Time is short, very short, and we must remain clear-headed. It is my duty, the duty of all of us who love France, to right the terrible wrong that has befallen our home. That must come first. I cannot jeopardise that goal with personal matters. You understand?’
She nodded in the darkness. ‘Of course.’
‘The goal of my life is to rid Alsace of the Boche. That has to happen. That must happen. I live from day to day, knowing that every dawn might be my last. I cannot think about the future. Once it has happened, ma chère Sibi, once the Boche is gone forever… then there will be a great celebration in Alsace and you and I – well, then is the time to celebrate. Tu comprends?’
She nodded, squeezed his hand because she knew he could not see her.
‘We are one and we must fight as one. Let us now sleep. We must start before dawn tomorrow.’
They lay down again, then, and he held her close, and they slept.
Chapter 14
They woke before dawn. The others were not up yet. Jacques prepared a simple petit déjeuner of stale baguette with cheese. A ring of large stones containing ashes, charcoal and half-burned pieces of wood indicated their stove; a small pile of dried wood lay next to it. There was also a large canister half-full of water, a battered saucepan and an old tin can which, once opened, revealed a brown powdery substance which might be coffee or might be tea: Sibyl could not tell the difference but set about making a fire to boil the water. For the first time – for last night they were but shadows – Sibyl met the other men. Bearded like Jacques, they emitted a sort of jovial camaraderie, with laughter and back-slapping in what Sibyl conjectured was a show of masculine bravado put on for her benefit; they had not expected a woman, and a young (and pretty) one at that. They spoke a rapid Alsatian too quickly for Sibyl too fully understand; she found she had become rusty in the language through lack of use. Their glances in her direction confirmed her suspicion that she was the subject of their conversation and the reason for their odd behaviour.
Jacques returned from a visit behind the trees and held up a commanding hand. He, too, spoke Alsatian, but slowly, at a pace that Sibyl could follow, and she knew this was for her benefit, and was grateful.
‘Comrades!’ Jacques said. ‘May I introduce our leader, who will be known to you only as Acrobat. I will tell you something about her you did not know: she understands our language and she understands what it means to be Alsatian, and what it means for Alsace to have fallen to the Boche. She is competent and passionate about her work, as passionate as we all are, and will do her best for us. She deserves your respect and I beg of you to treat her with the dignity she deserves. She is our leader and she has much to teach us. Last night you recovered the bounty she has brought with her; weapons and explosives. She knows how to use these things and she will teach us so please behave yourselves. You are not teenagers in the company of a woman for the first time. In fact she is not even a woman and you are not men: at this time we are all freedom fighters. Acrobat, these are the men I work with in the Colmar department: Alain, Gaston, Raoul…’ He introduced seven men in all.
Alain, Gaston, Raoul and the others, immediately subdued, came forward, removed their berets, extended hands for her to shake, grinned at her, mumbled words of greeting, and Sibyl smiled back and shook their hands and knew they were all a step further. She had been accepted.
They sat down on the grass or on logs or stones and the Alsatian became rapid again and she strained to understand; but Jacques, next to her, waved a hand with a motion of dismissal and said, ‘It’s only small talk. Let me explain the important things.’
So, over the stale baguette and cheese and a non-descriptive beverage Sibyl learned more of the details of her mission.
Alsace, Jacques told her, was too large, the Resistance movement too scattered, to be organised as a single unit; and so it had been divided. The area known officially as Bas-Rhin, around Strasbourg, was called North Alsace and the Maquis leader there was a man called Henri.
‘He will be here soon,’ said Jacques. ‘He is very competent, but a difficult man. Très difficile.’
He shook his head as if despairing of Henri, and continued.
‘We are around Colmar and that is South Alsace for the purpose of the Resistance. Up to now I have been the leader down here, but I have been usurped by you, for a very good reason. The problem faced by maquisards both in the north and the south is that we have no weapons, no ammunition and no money. This is where you come in; you have brought all of these supplies and we are immensely grateful. Now our work can continue in earnest.’
‘What have you done up to now?’
‘Well – it is almost embarrassing to tell you. It is like child’s play, but it has worked. Little acts of sabotage. Felling trees across roads used by the Boche. Slashing their tyres at night. Dropping large stones on their vehicles from bridges so that their windscreens are smashed. We wounded one of them by such an action. We interrupt their commercial ac
tivities. We halt their factories. We even use graffiti to annoy and irritate them! Anything to cause disruptions and slow them down. We use home-made bombs to blow up strategic buildings, bridges essential to them. But our bombs are not very effective as you can imagine. We want real bombs, hand grenades!’
‘Plenty of those in the boxes that landed last night!’
‘Yes. Our work will be more serious from now on, thanks to you. I understand you will give us a month of training?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, we will begin today. There is a ruined castle not far from here and we will all go there and set up camp. It is hidden in the forest, in the Vosges – the Boche do not know of it. We can all stay there and learn. Henri is bringing six or seven of his men. Twenty of mine will do the training.’
‘Why only six of Henri’s men?’
‘Because of the difficulty we have in being so spread apart. These men, they are all deserteurs the Boche tried to conscript into the Wehrmacht. They have all fled from their homes, from villages all over the Alsace. They have no way of communicating with each other except by going on foot to the next village, or maybe a farmer will take a man on his wagon or we can borrow a bicycle. But still everyone knows what he has to do. A few will learn with you in the coming month and then go on to teach others, distribute supplies. You brought a wireless?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. A transceiver. It can receive and transmit messages. I have brought two.’
‘Très bien. Then they in the North can have one and communicate with us in the South – we badly need to co-ordinate. With co-ordination we can achieve more, destroy more. We needed you desperately, Sibi!’
‘Well, I’m here now. And again: you must stop calling me Sibi! And I may not call you Jacques. That is the very first rule. I am Acrobat. You are David.’
Jacques snorted. ‘I will never call you Acrobat, not even in public. If I cannot call you Sibi I will call you something else. A new code name.’
He was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Lucie. You will be Lucie, for me and my men. You have brought us not just weapons but light.’
‘D’accord. Lucie, and David. And your boys?’
He shook his head.
‘We already know each other’s names; it is too late for us. But you: you are the agent. They must not know your real name or your field name. It will remain our secret. To the Resistance, you are Acrobat, known fondly as Lucie.’
* * *
Jacques announced it was time to move on. They all set about clearing up the area, removing all traces of their stay as well as they could. Most of the boxes of supplies they stored in a back room of the building; the men would come back for these later, he said, but now they had a meeting to attend.
He led the way out of the clearing uphill, followed by Sibyl and the others. It was a well-hidden path, overgrown with brushwood, through the forested hillside. They were properly in the Vosges mountains now, Jacques explained, but a part unknown to the Boche, who never ventured this far; for the time being at least, they and the supplies were safe. Each of them carried a box of supplies. Sibyl carried the money herself – one hundred thousand Reichsmarks in cash. Each of the others heaved a box on to his head.
They marched steadily, single file. The trudge was strenuous and seemed never-ending; but eventually they arrived at the ruins of what looked like a small castle, the walls thick and tumbledown and covered in moss, the roof mostly collapsed in heaps of broken tiles. A rusty locked gate blocked a massive entry archway, but Jacques ignored it and walked around to the back of the building where a doorless opening led into the ruin. Through that, across a large overgrown space that might once have been a kitchen, and they found themselves in an open arena which had obviously been prepared, and perhaps even inhabited, for it was cleared of the ubiquitous weeds and bushes that had otherwise claimed the castle.
‘Here we are,’ said Jacques, carefully lowering the box of hand grenades he had been carrying. All the men followed suit. They lit cigarettes, flexed their arms and legs, some sat down on a low stone wall, others on the flagged moss-covered floor.
‘I found this place many years ago,’ said Jacques. ‘It is a central meeting place for the Alsace South and North maquisards. And here is Henri!’
Henri was the largest man Sibyl had ever seen, not only tall, but burly, the thick muscles of arms and thighs straining against the fabric of trousers and his jacket. His face was square, heavy-jowled, a scowl, it seemed, his normal resting expression. At first glance Sibyl assessed his age at about thirty-five; but she could easily be wrong by ten years either way because the general aspect was one of a battle-bruised man made ageless through life-experience. He glared at her as he came forward.
‘Who is this?’ he asked in Alsatian, and aggression echoed in every word.
‘This is our English agent. She is Acrobat, but since that is too impersonal a name we will call her simply Lucie. She is our leader. She will teach us the tricks of her trade.’
The scowl hardened.
‘She is just a little girl. This must be a joke. Did she at least bring supplies?’
‘Yes. As you can see.’ Jacques gestured to the pile of wooden boxes set aside. ‘There is more where those came from.’
‘Well, let’s open them and divide them up. My boys can go and fetch the rest. That’s all we need.’
‘Forget it,’ said Jacques. ‘The deal is that she trains us in the use of these weapons and explosives. You’re not going anywhere without the training. A month. That’s what we agreed.’
‘You expect this child to train me? Look at her! Give her some pots and pans and let her cook for us, but don’t expect me to take instructions from her.’
‘Henri, that’s exactly what you’re going to do. You might be head of Alsace North but as far as SOE is concerned, and they are now our bosses because we are dependent on them for supplies, she is our chief from now on and you will bloody well accept and respect that or you will go back the way you came, empty-handed. And by the way, she also brought money. I thought you said your men were starving?’
Henri huffed and puffed and Sibyl decided it was time for her to intervene. She stepped forward, smiling, and held out her hand to him.
‘Bonjour, Henri. I’m delighted to meet you and I’m sure we will work together very well. I have brought some supplies for you, but I cannot release them without first ensuring you are taught how to use them. I assure you that I am more competent than it appears at first sight.’
Henri snorted and seemed about to ignore the outstretched hand but finally took it in his own bear-like paw, and squeezed. Squeezed hard. Sibyl held her breath at the pain. But she did not flinch.
‘I suggest we begin,’ she said. ‘Please, everyone, take a seat.’
Miraculously, they all obeyed, squatting down on their haunches, lowering themselves to the flagstones, or finding a semi-comfortable seat on a wall or stone, forming a loose circle around her. Sibyl, standing before them all, paused, letting her gaze drift from face to face. What a sorry lot of men! They looked like a ragtag gang of hobos, their clothes torn and ragged, shoes and boots scuffed and gaping open. The faces she saw were not eager ones. Not the faces of soldiers setting out to win a righteous war. As a nurse she had learnt to pick up silent cues from the faces of the people she was supposed to help; she had learned to read between the lines, to pick up hidden feelings. And what she read here was not good. She saw despair, anger, gloom, fear, resentment, distrust; resignation to a fate worse, almost, than death.
Their homeland was under siege, overpowered by a foreign power that had only its own dominance as goal. In particular, these men had no future if this war was not won, should Alsace remain German. They were renegades. They had evaded conscription. Should they be caught by the German police, or worse yet, by the Gestapo, their lives were over. They would be sent to concentration camps or executed. They were exiled from their homes, from their futures. There was no hope in those faces, no faith,
no belief that they could actually win. They fought with sticks and stones against Panzer and Luftwaffe. They were completely cut off from all news of, perhaps, an imminent Allied invasion; German propaganda fed them a constant diet of German triumph, the certain victory of Third Reich, the swastika as grand finale.
Sibyl was not a natural speaker, nor a teacher. She had never had to stand before a class to impart whatever knowledge she had; and what knowledge did she have, in the present circumstances? Just theory, whereas these men had actually lived Resistance, some of them for years. What authority did she have to teach them? Book knowledge; practice in bomb-making, shooting a rifle. Yes, she could perhaps teach those things. But was it enough?
They were waiting for her to speak but no words came from her lips. She had always known she’d have to teach and she’d practised. Learnt some of the chapters from her SOE manual off by heart, so that she could reel out the words when the time came. But now trepidation seemed to have caught hold of her tongue and frozen her brain.
The men waited.
She cleared her throat.
Speak!
She took a deep breath and at last the words came.
‘I’ll start by giving you some of the basics behind SOE work,’ she began. ‘I welcome all of you and I’m sure we will all get along fine. The first thing I need to tell you, even though you know this already because this is what you have been doing, is that the purpose of our work is simply this: sabotage and subversion.’
So far so good. This was pure manual teaching, and she knew it by heart. Nothing new here; but the men were listening and no-one yet had yawned. The faces were still closed, but they had listened.
‘Subversion, properly applied, is a vital weapon in our fight against the Boche, a vital arm in modern warfare. It has a fourfold objective: first of all, we must damage the enemy’s material as much as we can, that is, his vehicles and buildings and also his means of communication and production. This is important because modern warfare is entirely dependent on production and communication. If those are destroyed, the war cannot be won. So we must destroy as many machines as possible and damage the means of production.