by John Harris
‘What it is to have a reputation!’ she said. ‘People don’t know how valuable they can be.’ She laughed and tore off the nightdress; then, pushing Urquhart back into the feather mattress, literally dived after him.
‘You can’t leave till daylight,’ she chirruped. ‘And it’s a pity to waste a well-built man.’
9
‘Who told them, Wuttig?’ Klemens snarled.
Klein-Wuttig frowned. ‘Someone must have, Herr Oberst,’ he said. ‘Someone in the know.’
Pacing up and down in front of the fireplace, his hands behind his back. Klemens turned. There were only us, Dijon. Rolandpoint and St Seigneur,’ he said, and Klein-Wuttig stiffened.
‘Perhaps it’s nearer home than that, Herr Oberst.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Perhaps Tarnera let it out.’
‘Don’t be a damn fool!’
Klein-Wuttig’s eyes narrowed at the insult. ‘I didn’t mean that he went out and told them what we were going to do, Herr Oberst. But he’s far too friendly with them. He goes to see the priest. He goes to mass.’
‘He also goes to confession.’
‘It contains a suggestion of weakness,’ Klein-Wuttig said stiffly. The French think he’s a fool.’
‘More likely they think he’s a Catholic’ Klemens glared. ‘I think you’re talking out of the top of your head, Wuttig. You’ve got to come up with something better than that.’
Klein-Wuttig bit his lip. ‘Dijon’s pretty sore,’ he said. They passed the information on to us and they expected results.’
Then tell them they were mistaken and that the man who tipped them off has been shot.’
‘He hasn’t. He’s disappeared.’
‘Because he was given a good beating. I’d disappear if that happened to me, wouldn’t you? He’ll join the Resistance. There’s nothing like a German beating to make a good French Resistance worker.’
As they talked, Tarnera appeared. ‘We’re having the inquest,’ Klemens said. ‘Wuttig thinks someone split.’
Tarnera smiled and Klein-Wuttig scowled. ‘We’re all aware,’ he said, ‘that there are a great many people in the Wehrmacht looking over their shoulders these days.’
‘With the Russians at Odessa and heading for Sevastopol,’ Tarnera said, ‘it’s natural enough.’
Klemens slapped his leg with his crop. ‘What about the police?’ he asked. ‘Would they have split?’
‘I doubt it, Herr Oberst,’ Tarnera said. ‘They try to avoid taking sides.’
They should take sides,’ Klein-Wuttig said. ‘Our side.’
They’re Frenchmen, Fritzi,’ Tarnera pointed out, ‘You expect rather a lot.’
‘Give me time,’ Klein-Wuttig said, ‘and they’ll all be on our side.’
‘And good National Socialists to boot, no doubt.’
Klein-Wuttig opened his mouth to argue but Klemens waved him away. Klein-Wuttig scowled and left the room, and Klemens turned to Tarnera, his manner immediately easier, as if he’d shrugged out of a tight jacket. ‘What do you think happened, Tarnera?’ he asked.
Tarnera smiled. ‘I think they’ve simply developed an instinct for danger,’ he said. ‘It would be normal enough after four years of occupation.’
Klemens shrugged. ‘I told Fritzi to tell Dijon they were mistaken,’ he said.
‘I bet they weren’t.’
‘Of course they weren’t. But we don’t want an official reprimand for failing. Next time, Sturmbannfuhrer Frobinius and his blasted SS can do their own searching.’ Klemens gave a sudden grin. ‘Fritzi thinks you told them,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t approve of your being a Catholic.’
Tarnera smiled. ‘I suppose he imagines that when I go into the confession box I pour out the Fatherland’s secrets. The only secrets the Abbé Pol gets to know are those of my soul.’
‘So long as they contain none of mine. What’s he got against you?’
Tamera laughed. ‘I caught him fondling his orderly in the bathroom. You know he’s a homosexual?’
‘Of course I know. It’s nothing to be surprised about It’s fashionable in the Reich these days and his sort often go that way. All the same, you’d better watch it. People like that can be spiteful and I’m concerned for you.’ Klemens smiled. ‘I’m also concerned for me. Remember that. Did you get a reply from Colonel Marx about the pictures?’
Tarnera had deliberately dawdled. ‘He’s moved further north, Herr Oberst,’ he said. ‘I understand he’s now up near Paris somewhere and communication’s not easy because of the bombing.’
‘Well, at least we know the paintings aren’t in Goering’s possession.’ Klemens smiled. ‘You’re a rotten soldier, Tarnera, but you have your uses. That report you got on what’s at Karinhall was an excellent bit of work. Let’s now try Colonel Kaspar in Dijon. The general might have made a list. In the meantime, concentrate on this place. I want an inventory made.’
Tarnera’s eyebrows rose and Klemens gestured. ‘It’s another way of looking,’ he explained.
‘Very well, Herr Oberst. I take it you want everything putting down - even the chamberpots.’
Klemens frowned. ‘If they’re of value.’
‘Very well, Herr Oberst. Ill also earmark the transport to take the stuff back to Germany.’
Klemens’ head whipped round. ‘Who said anything about sending it to Germany?’
Tarnera shrugged. ‘It’s the common practice, Herr Oberst.’
Klemens coughed, knowing he couldn’t draw the wool over Tamera’s experienced eyes. ‘It behoves us to collect as much of what is valuable inside Germany as we can,’ he grunted.
‘If only to build a roof over us against the Allied bombing.’
‘Shut up, Tarnera!’ Klemens’ face had gone red. ‘That’s no way for a German officer to talk.’
Tamera’s smile vanished. ‘I’m not blinded by Party mystique. Herr Oberst,’ he said. ‘And neither, I suspect, are you.’
‘Sometimes it makes me want to throw up,’ Klemens admitted. ‘But my tongue won’t be the death of me all the same. So just stick to your inventory. You and I aren’t fools, Tarnera. We both have a shrewd idea that Germany isn’t going to win this war and that one day we’ll have to withdraw to our own frontiers. When we do, we’ll need all we can get to barter with for our immortal souls.’ Klemens tossed down a sheet of instructions. ‘In the meantime, you’d better inform the Baronne that we have to get an extra five thousand cords of wood for winter relief, to be transported to St Seigneur for despatch to Mannheim. There’s also been another restriction on the use of vehicles and we’re ordered to requisition horses and mules, and I want to know of every wheeled vehicle in the district. The Reich might have need of them before long.’ He paused. ‘Come to that, Tarnera,’ he ended, ‘perhaps you and I might too.’
The Baronne listened carefully to the orders Tarnera passed on. When he’d finished, she nodded and rose without a word.
As Tarnera opened the door for her, she eyed him carefully, trying to weigh him up. ‘Why do you want my pictures. Captain?’ she asked unexpectedly. ‘You’ve been through France like an army of locusts. Aren’t you satisfied?’
Tamera smiled. ‘I don’t collect pictures, madame.’ he said. ‘I don’t collect anything.’
The Baronne paused. ‘Does the colonel know anything about painting?’
Tamera shrugged. ‘Madame, these days, no one in Germany knows about painting. The edict came down from the high altar as long ago as 1937: Artists must no longer use colours other than those perceived in nature by the normal eye.’ His smile returned. ‘It marked the immediate departure from Germany of every worthwhile artist and every worthwhile painting.’
The Baronne eyed him warily, her old eyes shrewd. ‘You know about art, I think.’
Tarnera shrugged again. ‘We all have our own ideas, madame. Boudissin feels that the most perfect shape, the sublimest image, is a steel helmet, and we go in a lot these days for steam baths of national sent
iment and soulful elevation in the shape of challenging heroism - stern-visaged stormtroopers with flexed muscles or enormous bare-breasted Amazons. Ziegler’s confections of lifeless nudity have earned him the title of “Reich Master of Pubic Hair”. National Socialism claims to have taken the pretentiousness out of art. I think it’s merely taken out the art.’ The smile returned. ‘But we don’t discuss it, madame. What is on the walls is art, and that’s that.’
She was still watching him. ‘You are not a Nazi, Captain?’
‘No, madame.’
‘But you’re here in France.’
‘I’m still a German, madame. I endured the defeat after the last war when German prices rose and German values fell by the hour. You needed a barrow to carry your money and, if you delayed too long in buying, two. I’m pleased to see Germany great again.’
‘Not for much longer, I think, Captain.’
Tamera smiled again and said nothing, and the Baronne’s stitched mouth twisted.
‘Will my paintings be stolen ?’ she asked.
‘I suspect they will, madame.’
‘Is there nothing I can do?’
‘I regret, madame, nothing.’
‘Perhaps the arrival of de Gaulle will save them?’
‘Perhaps not even that. We’re a very efficient nation and we move very fast when we have to.’
She eyed him for a moment, treading warily. ‘Could you not do anything?’
Tarnera smiled. ‘I regret, madame, no. I value my head too much. If I objected. I could find myself on the Eastern front fighting the Ivans, and I prefer to remain here where I can be among the first to bolt for home when the British and the Americans arrive.’
10
Urquhart returned from Rolandpoint two days later. He had made no attempt to communicate or explain his absence, and Marie-Claude’s expression, at first anxious for his safety, changed to one of sullen anger when she learned where he was staying. Hearing him arrive, Elsie barked furiously and rushed out to fawn on him as he leaned Marie-Claude’s bicycle against the wall. As he entered the house. Reinach was there with Father Pol, and his mouth immediately widened into an empty grin. It was known all round Néry where Urquhart had stayed and Marie-Claude’s face grew stiffer still.
‘I’m surprised you had the strength to ride back,’ she snapped.
Urquhart smiled. ‘They’ve started to commandeer vehicles in Rolandpoint.’ he announced.
‘Do you think we don’t know?’ Marie-Claude said coldly. ‘We’re nearer the fount of knowledge here.’ She gave Urquhart another cold look. ‘You look like a cat that’s been at the cream. I suppose you were so busy you didn’t notice that the curfew didn’t go on all yesterday. I heard you stayed with Ernestine Bona.’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s a Norman. They’re like that up there. I suppose she pressed you.’
Urquhart’s smile died as he grew angry. ‘She suggested it because she’s a brave woman and it was the only safe thing to do,’ he said. ‘And I stayed an extra day because I’m no man’s slave - or a woman’s either.’
It was obvious the reply had hurt Marie-Claude and she turned quickly and hurried from the room. Neville swung round on Urquhart.
‘Christ,’ he said. ‘You could have let her down lightly.’
‘Why?’ Urquhart demanded. ‘She wanted to know.’
‘She believed in us.’
Urquhart laughed. ‘You sound like a prefect who’s sent for me to give me a whacking for telling dirty stories.’
Neville frowned. ‘You know damn well what I mean.’
‘No, I don’t I’ Urquhart’s temper rose. ‘I’m not a farm boy. I’m a senior N.C.O. in His Majesty’s Royal Air Force and I’m going to behave like one. There’s only one person I take my orders from and that’s my superior officer, and sometimes not even from him.’ He grinned. ‘And don’t tell me you’re my superior officer, because it won’t carry any weight. As far as I’m concerned, you’re still a kid who’s wet behind the ears.’
Humiliation stung Neville like a lash across the face. ‘Sometimes, Urquhart,’ he said, ‘I think you’re a bastard.’
‘I know I am.’ Urquhart smiled. ‘But there’s one thing I’m not - and that’s hypnotized by my own visions, I’m what one of your class used to call the brutal and licentious soldiery, the poor bastards who held the fort in 1939 and ‘40 until everybody else wound up their affairs, closed their homes and resigned from their clubs, because joining the army was something that was beneath you lot in peacetime. Most of those people who stayed behind at Dunkirk were Regulars and, because of them, the Saturday-night Territorials and the newly-joined who’d been sent out for a bit of experience got away. The blokes they’ve got in the stalags in Germany and the ones they shoved under the sod were people like me, dimwits who hadn’t sufficient intelligence or sufficient money to stay out of the army. Some of ‘em even joined to get a decent pair of boots because there wasn’t any work for them, but they -were still the only trained soldiers we had when the balloon went up. So don’t start delivering lectures on what’s right and what’s wrong to me, and don’t start telling me how to behave. Some of those brutal and licentious soldiery knew more about behaviour than a few public schoolboy officers I’ve seen, and don’t you make any mistake about it.’
It was a brutal attack but Neville could see Urquhart’s difficult pride had been touched and he tried to make peace.
‘For God’s sake,’ he said, ‘she was worried as hell about you.’
Urquhart looked up at him. ‘Sometimes I’d like to hit her over the head,’ he said. ‘But I’m aware of that.’ He smiled unexpectedly and slapped Neville’s shoulder. ‘Don’t let it get you down, lad. We all get dragged along a bit. Even Sancho Panza was talked into it by Don Quixote.’
It surprised Neville that Urquhart had even heard of Don Quixote and he decided there was more to him than he’d realized.
‘Did you really go to bed with Ernestine?’ he asked.
Urquhart laughed quietly, but without mocking this time. ‘Didn’t they ever tell you never to bandy a lady’s name about?’ he said. ‘They were much stricter about things like that in the sergeants’ mess.’
The following day they heard that the Germans had caught one of the Rolandpoint réseau’s messengers. He’d been sent to St Seigneur to cancel another parachutage that was due and had bumped into a German patrol. When he ran they shot him. Nobody talked, however, and two days later Néry sent a deputation to Rolandpoint for the funeral.
It proved a big affair, with several hundred mourners. A squad of German soldiers watched the ceremony but no action was taken and Father Xavier spoke an impassioned eulogy: ‘Soldat de France, mort pour la patrie .. .’
Jean-Frederic Dréo, who’d been a friend of the dead boy, went with Elsie who wore a thin ribbon of red, white and blue in her collar. Reinach approved neither of the eulogy nor of the red, white and blue ribbon, but young Dréo was unconcerned. ‘Everybody’s talking about what we did,’ he announced. ‘Even in St Seigneur.’
Marie-Claude’s eyes flashed. ‘Then they shouldn’t be!’ she snapped. ‘Last time someone talked too much they shot seventeen men and their relations! Tell them to keep their mouths shut! What about the radio operator?’
‘He’s in St Seigneur. He’s expecting a new agent to replace. Arsène.’
Urquhart smiled. ‘He could help us leave.’ he said.
Marie-Claude’s head turned. ‘Leave?’
‘For Spain.’ The smile became wider. ‘That was the idea originally, if you remember.’
Marie-Claude made an indeterminate gesture. ‘Things are different now.’
‘Why?’
‘Nobody knows the next link in the chain. If it’s broken it takes a lot of doing to join it together again.’
Urquhart said nothing but Neville had a feeling he didn’t believe her, and Marie-Claude hurriedly steered the conversation away from the subject.
‘This radio operator,�
� Reinach asked. ‘Can he still send messages?’
‘Yes.’
‘Perhaps he could send one for us.’
Marie-Claude’s head lifted and she smiled at Neville. ‘I think in Néry we’ve got our courage back,’ she announced.
Urquhart raised his eyes. ‘In case you haven’t noticed it,’ he said, ‘you’ve also got a load of weapons.’
It was something that hadn’t occurred to anybody before but when it did dawn on them, there was a sudden new excitement in the village and that night Father Pol, Reinach, Sergeant Dréo and Theyras turned up to play cards with Urquhart so they could discuss what to do with what they’d acquired so unexpectedly. As they played, Guardian Moch arrived, followed soon afterwards by Patrice de Frager, dressed as usual in his dramatic black.
‘Suppose, when the invasion comes,’ he said, ‘that Rolandpoint want their weapons back? We’d be left with nothing.’
‘Then we must acquire our own weapons,’ Reinach said.
‘How?’
‘We have a radio operator and a radio. Surely he’ll send one message for us.’
‘Who’ll draft it?’ Urquhart asked quietly.
‘Father Pol?’
Father Pol looked alarmed. ‘I don’t know anything about weapons.’
‘Sergeant Dréo.’
‘I’m just a simple soldier.’ Dréo waved his thick knotted hands. ‘I don’t know how to draft messages.’
‘Moch?’
‘I don’t know one end of a gun from the other.’
‘Reinach then.’
Reinach’s empty grin was faintly embarrassed. ‘I -wouldn’t know what to ask for.’
Urquhart smiled and Marie-Claude rounded on him angrily. ‘You’re sneering at us, aren’t you?’
Urquhart nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said.
Marie-Claude’s eyes blazed, but before she could spit her fury at him, he went on, speaking calmly.