by John Harris
‘Is this true?’ Dréo asked.
‘Yes,’ Urquhart growled.
Three pairs of eyes switched to Neville and he gestured. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said, ‘before you start doing anything, why not get in touch with London and see what they can do to help?’
The struggle with the harrow stopped for a moment as they stared at each other. They all knew what London meant. Though Russia and America had come into the war, because London had been the first to defy Hitler in 1940 it was still London that mattered.
‘There’s the radio at Rolandpoint,’ Reinach said thoughtfully.
The argument ground on, the harrow forgotten. Then Father Pol rattled into the yard on his bicycle. He wore his shovel hat over his eyes and had tucked his dusty soutane up out of the way of the pedals. Now that the weather had grown warm, his sockless feet were thrust into wooden sabots. He was in a hurry, pedalling as fast as his fat legs would go. As he reached the low wall that surrounded the kitchen entrance he flung the bicycle down, fell over it in his haste, and stumbled towards the group by the lorry. He stank of rank sweat.
‘We’re proposing a festival for Ste Amalie-de-Lachume,’ he said loudly.
‘Who’s Ste Amalie-de-Lachume?’ Reinach demanded. ‘I’ve never heard of her.’
‘My son, the Church has plenty of all-purpose saints no one has ever heard of that she can call on when they’re needed. Even St Blaise for tonsillitis.’ Father Pol was using his stomach to propel them towards the house. ‘I need a committee. I’m proposing to ask the German commandant for special dispensation to allow us a little celebration with candles in front of the Henri IV window.’
As they crowded into the kitchen, he shut the door and leaned on it to recover. ‘It’s the absence of fats,’ he said. ‘It leaves one exhausted.’ He drew a deep breath and went on in a rush. ‘Trouble,’ he said. ‘Father Xavier sent one of his choirboys from Rolandpoint on a racing bike.’
The door jerked behind him and the two Dréos, who had somehow struggled down from the lorry despite their artificial legs, pushed him aside. When they were all inside, he started again. ‘The Germans got a tip-off,’ he said, ‘and picked up a man near Rolandpoint with the cords from a parachute. He’d used them to tie up staves on his farm. They tortured him and found out where Arsène was. He’s now in La Butte Prison at Besançon but he managed to get a message to his radio operator who bolted to St Seigneur. He’s sitting there now with the radio and no one to give him instructions. The Rolandpoint réseau’s scared stiff.’
Elsie began to bark, and Neville dragged out the milk yield book they had to keep for the Germans and started filling it in blindly. Urquhart grabbed a scythe that had stood by the kitchen door and began to remove the blade. Marie-Claude banged down a history of Néry she’d started to write as a young girl, long since abandoned and recently rediscovered as an excuse for when people visited the farm.
They were all talking loudly of Ste Amalie-de-Lachume when Madame Lamy turned from the window. ‘It’s the Baron,’ she said. ‘And Guardian Moch.’
De Frager was dressed dramatically in black, and Neville leaned over to Urquhart to whisper. ‘He thinks he’s Rupert of Hentzau.’
De Frager removed his hat with the sweeping gesture of a Cyrano and faced them with eyes that flashed so much he seemed to have been practising.
‘We need every man we have,’ he announced loudly. ‘The Germans are going to lay on a raid at Rolandpoint.’
They all sat up at once and the sly smiles at de Frager’s histrionics vanished.
‘How do you know?’ Reinach asked.
‘Ernestine Bona,’ Moch pointed out. ‘She says that she helped Marie-Claude a little while back and it’s up to us now to help them in return. They’ve got to get rid of their weapons.’ He placed a piece of paper on the table. That’s what they’ve got. I picked it up from Brisson who has the garage.’
Reinach was reading the list out loud. ‘Two bazooka anti-tank guns; six Brens, with spares and extra magazines; thirty-six rifles; twenty-seven Stens, each with three hundred rounds; five pistols, each with fifty rounds; forty Mills grenades; twelve other grenades; a hundred and twenty kilos of plastic explosive; twelve thousand rounds of .303 ammunition; six thousand rounds of German Parabellum ammunition -’ he looked up. ‘Mon Dieu, you can’t hide that amount! There must be over a thousand kilos!’
De Frager gestured again. Like everything else he did, it seemed as if it belonged on a stage and had been rehearsed in front of a mirror. ‘Do you propose to let the Germans find them?’ he snapped.
‘Surely they’ve got a look-out watching the place?’
‘There’s a man in black leather on a motor cycle,’ Moch said. ‘Brisson thinks he’s an officer from Néry. He doesn’t know where the weapons are but he’s making sure nothing moves.’
‘For God’s sake,’ Sergeant Dréo said, ‘if we’re caught trying to get that pile away they’ll shoot the lot of us!’
Marie-Claude drew herself up, her eyes flashing. ‘You’ve been saying for months that we must do something,’ she said furiously. ‘Well, here it is, that something! You’ve been on your knees for four years! Stand up for once! Ill supply the horse and the platform.’
De Frager gestured. ‘I have a car,’ he said wildly. ‘Full of German petrol. Let’s drive in at full speed and grab the stuff.’
They didn’t even bother to answer him.
‘Where’s it hidden?’ Urquhart demanded.
Moch’s sly eyes flickered. ‘In Brisson’s loft.’
‘What’s behind the loft?’
‘The yard.’
‘And behind that?’
‘Brisson’s brother’s place,’ Dréo said. ‘He used it for scrap. He worked with Brisson until they quarrelled. He’s dead now.’
Urquhart leaned forward. ‘Where does the yard lead to?’
‘The other end of it’s in the Chemin des Chats. They say it got its name because it’s where all the cats do their courting and it always smells of cat-pee.’
Urquhart was silent for a moment and they all waited. There was something about Urquhart. His eyes were often sombre, even when he smiled, as though his life was an ocean of experience, and without conscious effort he could always dominate the room when he wanted attention. Not because he was handsome - he was far less handsome than Neville or de Frager - or because he had the gift of words. But in a smiling, sardonic way that managed to project personality, confidence and knowledge.
When he spoke again, it was dear his mind was busy with an idea.
‘Can you get through to the Chemin des Chats from Brisson’s place?’ he asked.
‘Not likely,’ Moch said. ‘There’s a high wall. His brother built it when they quarrelled.’
‘How high? Too high to get over with a pair of steps?’
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘Can it be seen from the main street?’
‘No.’
‘Where does the Chemin des Chats lead to?’
‘Out of the village in the direction of Néry. The other way it goes down to the Grande Place. But it winds.’ Moch’s narrow face was bright and eager now and he seemed to have caught at the idea forming in Urquhart’s mind. ‘The Germans wouldn’t see a thing - not even if they were standing in the Grande Place. We could get our men down there and carry it away in small lots.’
Neville gestured. ‘For God’s sake, if the village filled up with men from Néry, your German on his motor bike would see them immediately, wouldn’t he? Where is he?’
‘On the terrasse of Hytier’s place - the Bar de la Frontière. Down the street from the Bona farm. He can see the whole street from there - even the garage.’
‘Not the back of the garage,’ Reinach pointed out. ‘Not the lane.’
‘Are there houses in the lane?’ Urquhart asked. ‘Enough for people to be moving up and down?’
‘Plenty.’
Marie-Claude was leaning eagerly over Urquhart now. ‘Go on, Urk
’t,’ she said. ‘You’re making sense.’
Father Pol was not so impressed. ‘How do we move the weapons up the lane?’ he asked. ‘And where to?’
Dréo’s son slapped his thigh, The drain!’ he said- ‘Just above the village. It was put there when the place flooded in 1937.’ He pulled a face. ‘It’s also a sewer of course - for the timber mill and the cottages on the hill. But we could hide them in there.’
‘Better still,’ Reinach said, ‘why not put them in at the top and take them out again at the bottom? It runs under the road and comes out in the wood, in a ditch that leads to the river. We could have a cart waiting down there.’
‘How do you get them through?’
‘Men in the tunnel,’ Dréo’s son said. ‘I went through it myself once before I lost my leg - when my dog went in after a hare.’
‘It’s knee deep in mud and shit!’
‘For the love of God,’ Marie-Claude said. ‘If you like, I’ll go in.’
Reinach grinned. ‘The old men use the bridge to sit on and talk. They could pass the stuff down as it arrives. But how do we get it up to them ?’
‘Over the wall and through the back of Brisson’s brother’s place.’ Moch said. ‘Then out into the lane. There’s a window at the back of Brisson’s loft. Brisson could handle everything. He’s already wetting his pants with fear.’
‘There are a thousand kilos of the stuff,’ Neville pointed out soberly.
‘And even with the Lord’s help,’ Father Pol said, ‘that’ll take some carrying. The Germans will soon notice if every man in the village disappears.’
‘Then use women,’ Urquhart said. ‘Send them up to talk to the old men. Tell the old ones to fetch their husbands home to dig the garden. Tell them to go up to look for firewood. Old women carry bags. Young women push prams.’
‘The stuff’s heavy,’ Moch warned.
‘A Bren takes to pieces. And a woman can carry a stripped Sten in her shopping bag.’
Marie-Claude’s eyes were shining. ‘Ernestine Bona could organize them,’ she said. ‘She’s not short of guts.’
‘What about the rifles? And the rocket-launchers? You can’t get those in a shopping bag.’
‘Hand-carts,’ Reinach said. ‘Load them with sacks, wood, vegetables. Shove the weapons underneath.’ He slapped his thigh and for the first time there was an eager light in his eyes. ‘We can be there by midday and clear the place before curfew.’
‘What about the big stuff?’ Dréo’s son asked. ‘Brisson can’t even take a car to pieces, let alone a machine gun.’
‘I can,’ Urquhart said. ‘I’ll go over there.’
‘I’ll go. too,’ Father Pol said. ‘I’m too fat to climb into drains but I can go and help Father Xavier.’
‘We ought to get a message to them,’ Moch said. ‘Before they do something stupid. My daughter’s in the village with the petrolette. She can take it.’
While Father Pol began to write, Moch dragged his daughter out of Mere Ledoux’s bar where she was drinking an ersatz coffee with Gaston Dring. She was fifteen, and brown as a young partridge, and Marie-Claude stuffed the message into her brassiere between her plump young breasts.
‘Ride fast,’ she said. ‘So that your skirt blows up. If they see your legs, they’ll not think of looking anywhere else.’
As the little red petrolette roared off, Urquhart reached for Marie-Claude’s ancient cycle. ‘When are the Germans expected?’ he asked.
‘They make their searches at midnight,’ Moch said. ‘When they expect to catch everybody in bed.’
Urquhart grinned and drove at the pedals. ‘Better make sure they curé in bed then,’ he said.
8
The rescue worked like a military operation.
When Urquhart cycled down the bill into Rolandpoint there were already four old men sitting on the bridge smoking, and he noted with satisfaction that they looked strong old men.
‘The girl brought the message,’ one of them said. ‘What legs that one has!’
In the Grande Place German soldiers were standing about, evidently on the alert because there were two tanks and several lorries alongside the war memorial. Outside the Bar de la Frontière, the man Moch had described was drinking a coffee and Urquhart recognized him at once as a German officer from Néry. Women, children and old men seemed to be everywhere, all with their eyes on Brisson’s garage.
He found Father Pol with Father Xavier, smoking in the sun on a bench outside the presbytery, watching everything that went on. Ernestine Bona, powdered, mascaraed and crammed into a tight red dress, was clutching a bunch of flowers as though about to place them in the churchyard. She was talking to the priests with Stephanie Moch whose face was still flushed with the wind of her ride and the joy of having done something illegal without being caught.
‘For God’s sake, Father,’ Urquhart said, gesturing at the women up the street. ‘Get those people moving about! Their eyes alone will give us away.’
Ernestine put down the flowers. ‘I’ll go,’ she said at once. ‘They don’t like me much but they’ll do what I tell them.’
As she disappeared, Urquhart headed for the Chemin des Chats. Entering the scrapyard that had belonged to Brisson’s brother, he climbed the wall by the ladder that was already leaning there. There were two men working in the scrapyard and one of Brisson’s apprentices standing on a pair of steps at the other side. The second apprentice was waiting under the window at the back of the garage, with Brisson in the loft above stuffing weapons into sacks as fast as he could. Stripping the machine guns, Urquhart supped back out of the garage into the lane and laboured up again to the old men sitting on the bridge above the drain.
‘Ready?’
The old men nodded and, climbing over the parapet into the bed of the stream, he peered into the drain. It was full of broken bottles and rusty tins. In the darkness he could hear splashing.
The men from Néry were taking up their positions, up to their knees in the mud and rubbish that washed down from the hillside. Despite the darkness and the foetid smell, there was a distinct atmosphere of excitement. Reinach, Ernouf and de Frager had gone round Néry demanding help from everyone, The women were told to gossip in doorways and the few men like Balmaceda, Theyras and the Dréos, who couldn’t climb into die drain, the middle-aged and older women like Madame Lamy - even the Baronne - and the young boys and schoolchildren were ordered to make themselves obvious. The rest of them - with Marie-Claude and Gaudin’s elder son driving rubber-tyred platforms - had set off for Rolandpoint by the roads through the woods.
‘Ready?’ Urquhart called, and Ernouf’s voice came back.
‘Send them as soon as you like.’
Cycling back down the lane, Urquhart turned towards the presbytery. Not far away Ernestine Bona was talking to a group of women.
‘Cart first,’ he ordered.
Ernestine smiled. There’s one waiting round the corner with a load of turnips,’ she said. ‘The Germans look down their noses at turnips. It’s as safe as houses.’
Waiting in a back kitchen, sipping a glass of wine, Urquhart watched the cart go past with a thumping heart. Five minutes later word came down that the two bazookas were safely away.
‘Now the next cart ?’ Ernestine asked.
‘For God’s sake, no, woman! Use your damned imagination! Send girls up with prams and babies! They can shift a few Stens!’
Ernestine shrugged. Men normally didn’t talk to her as Urquhart was talking to her. Because she had a ripe body and black market food and drink, they usually asked her permission instead of telling her what to do. ‘I think the brats’s find it a bit uncomfortable,’ she said.
Three girls with prams containing howling babies sauntered up the lane. Behind them a bony old man who had fought in the war of 1870 as a boy of fourteen hobbled past in an ankle-length overcoat, followed by a donkey-cart loaded with scrap wood, and a long crocodile of children.
Ernestine gave Urquhart a wide smile.
‘I’ve fixed a school outing,’ she said. They’re going to draw wild flowers, and they all have satchels for their pencil boxes. There’ll be room for a magazine or a Mills bomb.’
Urquhart grinned. ‘For God’s sake, make sure there’s someone up there to pack them properly!’
Ernestine sniffed. ‘All organized. Father Xavier’s by the scrapyard and they’ll stop to get his blessing. As they come back they can bring something else down to the classroom and we can pick it up there and take it round the back of the village. We’ve also started a line across the lane to Sosthene Doumouriez’s cottage and over the wall to the window of Bertrand’s shed. From there it goes down the garden, through the house and out of the front door, and up to the drain that way. There’s another lot going through old Tessier’s forge and across the allotment to the fields. They’re wrapped in curtaining. The women put their washing on the grass up there, and there are leaves higher up that they collect for their rabbits. No one’ll notice anything odd.’
During the morning, Klemens drove over to Rolandpoint himself to make sure everything was as it should be. As the car climbed the hill, a boy waiting with his bicycle in the trees at the top shot down the opposite slope past the old men.
‘Germans!’ he said as he passed and a bundle was hurriedly handed down with a warning from the bridge to Ernouf standing in the mouth of the culvert below. By the time Klemens’s car rolled down the hill after the cyclist, the four old men were sitting on the parapet smoking and talking to three girls with prams.
All movement had stopped in the tunnel. The entrance contained only a trickle of water and thick mud. Further inside it was impenetrably black and filled with nauseous air, the only light coming from candles resting on bricks projecting from the wall. None of the warmth of the day penetrated the darkness, and everyone in the tunnel was icy cold.
Standing up to his knees in black slime, Neville could see other men waiting motionless - Reinach; the two Drings; Guardian Moch; Ernouf; Patrice de Frager; the Baronne’s gardener, Psichari; Gaudin, the farmer, and his eldest son; and a few others, as well as a lot of teenage boys and even a few girls. Marie-Claude was near Lionel Dring, her unbuttoned blouse plastered to her breasts, her wet skirt clinging to her thighs, her hair escaping in damp ringlets from beneath the scarf she’d tied round it as the peasants did - though not for a minute did she look like a peasant. She saw Neville looking at her and managed a smile. Despite the unromantic circumstances, he was aware she’d been watching him and elation surged through him, so devastating he forgot what he was doing and almost dropped the package he was holding. As he smiled back, Lionel Dring; frowned and abruptly lit a cigarette.