The Glory Girls

by June Gadsby

  ‘There are two German staff cars in the drive,’ Mary said. ‘I noticed yesterday that the keys had been left in. It’ll be a tight squeeze, but they should get us far enough away. We could be in the Pyrenees in a few hours.’

  Alex was slinging a canvas haversack on to his back. The other men were looking nervous and confused, but they seemed ready enough to follow orders, even if it was Mary giving them.

  ‘Well, I won’t say that I’m going to miss the old place,’ said one young man with a grin and Alex slapped him on the back.

  ‘Me neither, Jenkins,’ he said, then indicated the tunnel down which he had just brought Mary. ‘Shall we go?’

  They were cautious as they lifted the hatch and climbed out, one after the other, some of the men not so agile because of their injuries. However, they had existed together for so long in close proximity to one another that they had become a family. Help and support was forever at hand.

  A high-pitched, canine yap pulled Alex up as they crept down the wide, sweeping drive, keeping close in to the high laurel hedge that circled the chateau grounds.

  ‘Oh, hell!’ he said and Mary turned to see the little dog, Chiffon, standing in the middle of the gravel forecourt, all aquiver, her tiny stump of a tail wagging. ‘Chiffon, go! Va-t-en!’

  He picked up a pebble and threw it at the dog. It landed in front of the terrier’s nose, making her leap back with a startled, whimpering cry. Mary’s heart contracted. She was an animal lover and she could see from Alex’s expression that it pained him to be so brutal towards the dog, but they couldn’t take the risk of her revealing their presence. A barking dog, even one as minute as this one, could arouse the deepest, alcoholic stupor.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Alex ordered, his voice rasping low in his throat.

  ‘Just a second, sir.’ Jenkins ran over to a third, smaller car and they saw him fiddling under the bonnet. ‘That fettles him. He won’t be going anywhere in a hurry.’

  ‘Into the damned cars, now.’ Alex was beginning to sound impatient. ‘Go, go, go!’

  He grabbed Mary’s hand and ran across the courtyard with her, the other men following. They ran, she noticed, on bare feet, with their boots strung around their necks. There was less noise that way. There was a moment’s panic as they struggled to fit a large airman into one of the cars. He had a broken leg encased in bulky splints, but they made it by having him lie across the back seat. As soon as he was installed, they released the handbrakes and let the cars cruise soundlessly down the long, curved drive towards the big wrought-iron gates.

  Not until they were through the gates and on the road did they start up the engines. Alex swore again as he fumbled with the ignition and the car he was driving coughed apologetically and refused to start. However, it must only have been nerves, for it started immediately after and everyone breathed sighs of relief.

  ‘I was beginning to think that our cover was invincible,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I might have known that our luck would run out eventually.’

  Mary found some maps of the region in the glove compartment, which was good news indeed. Better news still was the fact that Private Jenkins, who was squashed in beside her, claimed to be a dab hand at map-reading, so she gladly handed over the navigation to him.

  Only a couple of hundred yards from the chateau, Alex glanced in his rear mirror.

  ‘Oh, no!’ he groaned and slowed the car down to a walking pace.

  ‘What is it?’

  Mary strained her neck so she could see what he was looking at, afraid that it was a problem with the second car. Apart from almost running into the back of them at the unexpected slackening of pace, the other car appeared to be fine. But there was something moving in the road behind. Ears flopping, long pink tongue curled up over her nose, the little dog, Chiffon, was racing to catch up, short legs going like pistons.

  ‘I can’t leave her,’ Alex said with an embarrassed smile.

  ‘Never thought you would, sir,’ said Jenkins, grinning as he pored over a map with the aid of a torch. ‘Well, I mean to say, she is our lucky mascot, isn’t she?’

  The dog was running abreast of them now, running tirelessly and glancing at two-second intervals at Alex through the driving seat window. She made no sound until he swore again softly, opened the door with the car still moving, and the dog leapt in over his knees and landed on Mary with an ecstatic yelp.

  ‘Right,’ said Alex, giving Chiffon a quick stroke and Mary’s hand a squeeze. ‘Now that we’re all here, let’s go for real. How long before we get to the Pyrenees, Jenkins?’

  ‘Depends which roads we take and how fast we drive, sir,’ Jenkins answered him, ‘but I reckon on three hours, stopping for nothing.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Alex moved up in the gears and put his foot down on the accelerator ‘Well, let’s hope we don’t have to stop … for anything. Keep us to the country roads, Jenkins. We can’t afford to meet a German patrol.’

  ‘In that case, better take this next left turn,’ Mary said, pointing as the almost hidden turning came up.

  ‘Hold on, everyone!’ Alex managed the turn without landing them in the ditch, but only just. ‘How did you know that was there, Mary?’

  ‘I’ve been here before, remember? The trouble is, in the dark and without signposts, it all looks so different.’

  ‘We’ll make it, Mary,’ he said, gripping the wheel and leaning forward to concentrate on the rough track. ‘It looks like a bumpy ride, but next stop the Pyrenees.’

  Anne Beasley sat with Monsieur and Madame Laroque in their smart salon, while the Germans searched the grounds for the missing fugitives. They had discovered the underground cave hospital twenty minutes ago, having failed to make any of the old French people who lived there tell them where it was.

  She sat stiffly erect in her chair, looking coldly upon the battered faces of the two French people who had been so kind to her as a child. Miss Croft’s Tante Adèle held up her head proudly, though it was evident that she could no longer see through her black, swollen eyes. Her lip was split and bleeding and, Anne knew, there had to be unseen injuries to the poor woman’s torso. Oncle Didier was slumped on the sofa beside her, bleeding from a vicious blow to the head. One arm hung limply down and she wasn’t sure whether they had broken it or simply dislocated the shoulder. With difficulty, his good hand reached out and touched the hand of his wife. Their fingers intertwined.

  ‘Ça va, Adèle?’ he whispered.

  ‘Ça va, chéri, she replied.

  The servants, Madame Dufore, the housekeeper and, Monsieur Martin, the gardener, and his simple-in-the-head assistant, sat at the back of the room. The housekeeper wept noisily. Anne wished she could afford to shed the tears that were falling inside her, but she could not. She had been given a pistol and told to shoot any one of the occupants of the room, if they so much as moved. She prayed she would not have to carry out the order, but she was prepared to do anything to protect her true identity. As far as she could tell, the Laroques had not recognized her as the child they had known as Anne Beasley.

  A clump of jackboots crossing the hall made her jerk to attention even more rigidly. The sound of the telephone dial spinning round seemed extra loud, but the one-sided conversation was muffled. When it was over, Heinrich entered the room, came over to her and took the pistol out of her sweaty grip.

  ‘They have taken the kommandant’s cars,’ he said. ‘And disabled mine. Did you not hear them in the night?’

  ‘No, of course not, Heinrich. I was asleep like you. We all had too much to drink. It is Christmas, after all.’ Anne could feel her heart dipping and tripping along erratically. ‘Have you phoned for some taxis?’

  He was a long time in replying and Anne had a sinking feeling in her stomach. Something was not right. Heinrich had lost his smile, his charm. He looked more than worried. He looked furious.

  ‘If I asked you about the British safe house at Agen, would you lie and tell me that you don’t know what I’m talking about?’
r />   Anne smiled sweetly up at him and made to take his hand, though her insides were quaking.

  ‘Heinrich, darling, what is all this about? Of course I don’t know …’

  His hand flew out so quickly she had no time to see it coming. His signet ring cut a weal across her cheek and sent her flying back into the cushions of the chair.

  ‘Traitor!’ he yelled out as the room filled with angry Germans, humiliated at having been tricked and robbed into the bargain.

  ‘What is this?’ Kommandant Heffner demanded. ‘Please explain, Oberleutnant.’

  ‘I have just spoken to my … my contact, Herr Kommandant. It appears that the lovely Anna here is not German at all. She’s English.’

  ‘How very interesting. Can one assume that you have not been indiscreet during your … shall we say … love trysts?’

  ‘No, Herr Kommandant … I mean, yes, you may assume that. There have been no indiscretions. You have my word on that.’

  ‘Very well, then. We will leave you to deal with the problem as you see fit. You know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Heinrich’s face had turned to stone. ‘You are leaving, Herr Kommandant?’

  ‘As soon as I acquire two new cars,’ the kommandant said, glancing at his watch. ‘Which should be very soon now.’

  They waited almost an hour until cars were brought from the village. Each hollow tick of the ormolu clock on the marble shelf above the fireplace gave Anne the feeling that her life was slipping away. She had failed miserably in her duty. Somehow, she had revealed herself to an enemy spy, but who could it be? It could only have been someone at one of the safe houses she had visited after her drop into France. Her job had been to winkle out the traitor, but it hadn’t been as easy as she had imagined. And then she had met Heinrich and everything went topsy-turvy.

  A cold finger of fear traced its way down her spine. There was, she thought, only one person it could possibly be, but it was too late now to do anything and Mary was going to walk right into a trap if she made it to the safe house in the Pyrenees, if that was where they were headed, and she was sure they were.

  ‘Come, Anna,’ Heinrich said, hauling her to her feet and dragging her with him to the door. ‘It is time.’

  He turned at the door and waved his pistol at the four old people and the boy with the scared eyes and a dribble of saliva on his chin.

  ‘Nobody moves, do you hear? You stay where you are and you will keep your miserable lives.’

  Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. What was the use? He was going to execute Anne no matter what they did. The blessing was that he was not going to do it in front of them.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ Anne demanded, suddenly realizing that they were walking down the hill from the chateau and that he had not yet used his pistol on her as she had fully expected.

  ‘Damn you, Anna!’ He spat the words at her, his grip not losing its power for one second. ‘Why did you choose me as your pawn, eh? Why me? We had something good … I thought you felt something for me. Something genuine.’

  ‘I did, Heinrich,’ she said, suddenly feeling the sobs and tears that she had been holding back, welling up and choking her. ‘I do care for you. I do!’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ he said, stopping so suddenly that she almost fell and he caught her to him in a tight embrace, his mouth seeking hers hungrily; and just as suddenly, he let her go. ‘I know you care, Anna. I do know.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So that’s why I must give you a chance.’ He raked impatient fingers through his fair hair. ‘My superiors expect me to put a bullet in your head, but I cannot do it. I cannot be the one who pulls the trigger. I am too damned weak.’

  Drawing in a ragged breath, he marched her into the village where people were out in the streets, making feeble attempts at celebrating the festive season, though there was little in the way of festive food to enjoy. At the sight of the tall German officer with his arm around the pretty blonde woman, they stared curiously and even gathered round when he called out to them, kissed the girl fully on the mouth, and she showed little resistance.

  There were titters of subdued laughter, no one knowing exactly what the spectacle was supposed to be, or how they were supposed to react to it. Some drew back, while others surged forward, forming an uneven ring around the couple.

  ‘Ah, I see I have your attention!’ he called out to them in fractured French. ‘You see this woman? She thinks she is in love with me. I have shared my bed with her. Does this not shock you, my fine friends?’

  Eyes were beginning to exchange wary glances. This was new. A German officer of the Wehrmacht baring his soul in public?

  ‘I have heard what you people do to your compatriots who have affairs with German soldiers. So, I place her in your hands. She is not French, but English. Perhaps that makes a difference, eh?’

  With that he gave Anne a push into their midst. She turned to plead with him not to leave her there, but he was already walking away and the circle of people had tightened around her. At first it seemed that they were simply stunned, not knowing what to do with her. Then a shout went up and hands came at her, touching her, pinching her, punching her. She went down on her knees and a boot sank itself into her stomach.

  As she folded over with the pain of the blow, more heavy blows rained down on her, then they lifted her and carried her away and she prayed for death to come quickly.

  The journey had taken longer than anticipated because they travelled at night. As they made their way cautiously through the foothills of the Pyrenees looking for a possible route where the frontier wasn’t guarded by the enemy, they almost fell foul of a group of French partisans mistaking them for Germans.

  The danger, however, soon passed. From that moment on, the German staff cars were discarded and the partisans guided them to an isolated house on the outskirts of the town of Saint-Girons. The woman who lived there welcomed them warmly, giving them the traditional hearty garbure soup and wild rabbit that she cooked on a spit over the open fire. She did not seem at all surprised to see them and explained that there had been many refugees before them, and would no doubt be many more to follow.

  ‘My house is small,’ she told them as they sat elbow to elbow at her kitchen table, passing the wine and the bread and thinking they had not tasted anything so good for a long time. ‘If the Germans come, you must hide in the roof space. Eat now, then I have clothes for you.’

  ‘Clothes, madame?’ Mary looked at their hostess quizzically.

  ‘Oui, mademoiselle. It is winter and there is much snow on the mountain. If you are to walk over the passes into Spain you will need more than those things you stand up in now.’

  ‘But you couldn’t possibly have enough spare clothing for all of us,’ Mary said with a quick, anxious glance at Alex, who was following the conversation closely.

  ‘Not all, that is true. Some must go. The others must stay, until the next passage.’

  ‘That lets me out,’ said the airman with the broken leg. ‘I suppose I’ll be holidaying here until the spring.’

  There were murmurs of sympathy, but the man simply shrugged and got on with the business of eating. When there was no choice, he seemed to say, what was the good of arguing? Best go with the flow of things.

  ‘How will we find our way across the mountains, madame?’ Mary asked.

  ‘My son will take you. He knows these mountains, every rock and stone. Every blade of grass. He grew up here. You will be safe with him.’

  After the meal, when the men were bedding down for the night in every available space, arguing good-naturedly over who should guard the fire and who should keep a look-out for Germans, Alex touched Mary on the shoulder and jerked his chin towards the door.

  ‘Mary and I will take first watch,’ he told the others. ‘We will take it in turn, two by two in one hour stretches.’

  Outside, wrapped in blankets against the cold December air, they sat side by side, pressing as close together as they could g
et. It was the first time they had been alone since leaving the chateau, though they had not stopped touching, even when it could be no more than their arms and shoulders pressed together as they drove. Their raw emotions were palpable even through the layers of clothes.

  Mary could feel Alex breathing deeply beside her. There was so much she wanted to say, so much to tell him, yet she couldn’t bring herself to put it all into words. Not just yet awhile. She stared mutely at the purple sky, its clouds reflecting the pale snow that covered the ground and rose in breathtaking peaks for miles beyond the valley.

  After a minute or two, she felt him move, felt his hands on her, felt him pulling her so close that they might be one entity.

  ‘My dear, sweet Mary,’ he whispered, his breath comfortingly warm against her forehead. ‘I thought I would never see you again.’

  ‘I thought for a long time that you were dead,’ she told him. ‘I still can’t believe that we’re here together. I can’t believe what’s happening.’

  She slid her arms around him, hugging him tightly. Nothing mattered any more but this moment. Even if they only had this night, it was worth everything she had been through.

  ‘You know I love you, don’t you, Mary?’ He looked deeply into her eyes and she nodded. ‘I fell in love with you the first moment I saw you. There’s a wonderful sense of peace about you. It shines out of you like some incredible inner beauty. It’s quite, quite magical.’

  ‘Well, you weaved your own magic spell around me, Alex, the night of the talent contest when you danced with me, then later, when we kissed.’

  ‘I was wrong to do that, but I couldn’t stop myself. A married man shouldn’t be carrying on like that … like this, but …’ He lowered his head and found her lips and she surrendered herself selfishly to his kiss before pushing him gently away. ‘What is it? What’s wrong, Mary?’

  ‘Alex … don’t you know … about your wife?’

  ‘Fiona?’ He blinked at her, the muscles in his cheeks tensing. ‘What about her? What’s happened? I’ve had no news from home since Dunkirk.’