by John Gardner
Now, standing beside the window, Jo-Jo said it all seemed inevitable once Hitler had made his unstoppable move. ‘Damn! Everything’s been for nothing.’ There were bright-red spots of frustration high on Caroline’s cheeks. ‘What has?’
‘Living like peasants. Sharing our beds with fleas and our bread with beggars.’
‘How can we tell? We chose to do that, Caro.’ Jo-Jo had a way of suggesting a truth, then leaving it to hang in the air, waiting for the other person to speak.
At last Caroline said, ‘I suppose we go, then.’
Jo-Jo gave a sigh. ‘Right then. We burn the passports and papers. Use the ones he gave us and head west. It’s less than one hundred fifty kilometres.’
‘Jules Fenice.’ Caroline said the name as though she had known the man since birth, and wondered what he would be like – this man trained by Uncle Caspar and waiting for them in a village on the Loire, near Orléans.
First they had the job with the weapons and ammunition. Then they were to link up with Jules Fenice, whose code name would be Felix in the years to come.
They stayed in the little apartment until it was dark, burning the papers and anything that linked them to England. Then, with a few belongings packed in their cheap cardboard suitcases, they set out from the Rue de la Huchette, Paris, to the village of St Benoît-sur-Loire, within spitting distance of Orléans.
They dodged German soldiers who entered Paris in the morning, and then the French police – for France gave itself over to Hitler’s Reich during their journey, with Marshal Pétain setting up his puppet government in Vichy. They used their French papers, which turned them at a stroke from Caroline Railton Farthing and Josephine Grenot into Catherine and Anne Routon. Sisters.
They were to be known, later and to others, as Maxine and Dédé – part of a network called Tarot, which became famous, and infamous.
For the two girls the journey from Paris was a trip into fame which ended in oblivion, mystery, and intrigue.
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