by S C Brown
Turning right in front of the Washington statue, Berner crossed the park but instead of turning left back towards the Hotel Majestic, he turned directly back on himself. Anyone who had been behind Berner would now be in front of him - and there they were! The man who had been following Berner for a while flicked his head left and right and quickly said down on a bench, remembering eventually to read his newspaper. Beyond him, two other men suddenly stopped, hesitated, looked at each other and then nearly walked into each other in alarm. One of them reached into a pocket for some cigarettes and offered one to his friend.
Berner heard footsteps run into the square behind him. It sounded like two men. The running slowed to a quick walk. Berner was glad to hear them keeping their distance. With all these eyes on him, he could not help a little smile escaping.
Breathing harder as he made his way up the slight hill, Berner noticed how much wider this stretch of the road was – and how easy it would be to snatch him off the street now. He crossed the road, using the parked cars as a barrier against such an attack.
The noise of the traffic increased as he walked on towards the Arc – it was becoming difficult to hear footsteps behind. Approaching a junction, he heard running footsteps behind him. Berner closed his eyes, swallowed hard and kept walking.
Without warning, Berner turned left past a bar and was quickly back onto the Avenue Kléber. Unable to help himself, he started to hurry back to the Hotel Majestic. The car he had noticed earlier drove past quickly and pulled up on his side of the road. Berner trotted over the road. Two men got out of the car, about to cross to get on the same side as Berner. They waited for a car to pass, which was slowing and then stalled in front of them. The two Frenchmen tried to walk around the other car but it lurched forward and stopped them. Realising what was going on, Berner smiled, put his hand in his pocket and pulled out his security pass to show to the sentries at the gate to the Hotel Majestic. He was home safely.
Even though this was one of the coldest winters for years, Berner’s shirt was soaked with sweat when he got to his office and sat down heavily.
An orderly knocked at the door. ‘Colonel Berner?’
‘Yes?’
‘You are asked to go straight to the cipher room, an urgent message has come for you.’
* * *
Paul had worked fast. The facts were that the Germans had Michel and so Paul laboured over his contact sheets – the pages of Paul’s most secret notebook, where he had written down a list of exactly who knew who. It was a risk even writing this information down but it was paying off today.
Paul knew who Michel was closely associated with and also all the people in the Resistance who were known to Michel. It was this that left Paul wriggling uncomfortably in his chair. Michel knew almost everyone. Paul cursed himself silently: he should have spotted this earlier: Michel was a risk simply because he had become a big noise in the Resistance and as a consequence grew to know so many. If Michel talked, the Germans could find out about them all and sweep up the entire network, just like they did in Rouen.
He himself owed his freedom to simply sticking to his own advice. Michel had not been careful enough. He should have insisted that Michel not go home last night.
Paul marshalled his small network of helpers. Firstly, he sent out word to get the safe houses ready to receive more people. He then set a very discrete chain in motion to move Michel’s four closest Resistance associates quietly out of work that day and into separate safe houses. They would then be picked up and moved again to houses deeper into the countryside the following day. All of them had been evading the German factories for years and so to suddenly disappear would be nothing new.
The lookouts at Clement’s farmhouse were pushed out a little further to provide more warning time. One of the men was sent to check all the tents and all the provisions to support life, which Paul hid away months ago, including a small weapons cache and food for if they needed to take shelter in the woods. For the next few days, Clement, Saxon and the others would sleep fully clothed and armed.
Lastly, after all his messages had been sent, Paul sent two pairs of men into the village to listen in the bars and cafés to see what the villagers were saying and if any strangers had appeared asking questions. Paul had very little by way of fingernails left. He knew the next 48 hours would be crucial. It all hung on Michel. Again. Everything, everything, depended on Michel’s silence. And that was the problem, wasn’t it, thought Paul. The one man he trusted least in front of the Gestapo was Michel. It didn’t take long for Paul to insist that Saxon’s plan to raid the railway again be put on hold.
By the time evening came, Paul had lost count of how many cigarettes he had smoked. He now knew that Michel was indeed in Rouen and had in all probability been interrogated already. It made Paul stop and think. Was he going to be next? Say nothing, Michel, say nothing, Paul pleaded quietly in the isolation of his room. Staring at the door, as if it could be kicked open at any time, Paul tried to reassure himself that he was as safe as he could be. Yet the waiting, the loneliness of the next few days, trapped indoors with his thoughts, was going to be hell and there was nothing he could do about it.
He jumped when the back door knocked quietly. His right hand man, Richard, stood in the darkness of the hallway to make his final report. It wasn’t good: Madame Morneau was dead and her farm torched. Madame Morneau had known practically everyone who had been on the raid the railway the other day. Returning to the solitude of his room, Paul lit yet another cigarette and dug out his notebook for the second time. His day had just got a lot longer and a lot more dangerous.
* * *
‘She’s a honey!’
‘That good, eh?’
‘Beautiful … striking. Why don’t I get followed by girls like her?’
‘They have better sense, perhaps?’ Berner asked his Sergeant.
‘Whoever she is, she had ‘professional’ written all over her. She’s onto you. No doubt about it.’
‘She’s real classy stuff.’ Brunswick’s eyes twinkled. ‘This woman and the ape she’s working with watched you leave and then he got up and left, I assume to get the team into action to follow you. She, on the other hand, stayed put. So I thought it best to remain stationery and keep her under surveillance.’
‘Brunswick, you’re unbearable.’
‘She knew I was there but she didn’t suspect anything. Her attention was mostly outside the café, wondering no doubt what was going on.’
Brunswick went on: ‘I have spoken to my team. You had five Frenchmen following you. If you counted the shifty-looking one, then it’s six. They looked like they knew what to do but just had trouble doing it. I hear it was almost comical when you turned around in that square.’
‘Dreadful.’
‘But don’t be fooled. They’re not as bad as many we have seen before. What is interesting is that they were so focused on you, they didn’t notice they were being followed themselves. These were French Resistance, no doubt about it. They didn’t like that trick we played with the car to block them getting their hands on you, that’s for certain!’
‘Do you think they would have grabbed me?’
‘What and kill you in broad daylight on a street with a German Guardroom just a couple of hundred metres away? Unlikely. My money is on them testing you, to see how aware of them you really were.’
‘Checking me out for next time?’
‘Perhaps. Anyway, you wanted to know if they were watching you, and they definitely are. The French know you’re here, which means the British will very soon too, if they don’t know already.’
‘OK. Anything else?’
‘Her name is Eve.’
‘The girl in the café?’
‘Yes. Eve. Beautiful. Can I make a request, Sir?’
‘Yes,’ replied Berner warily.
‘If anyone’s going to get honey-trapped around here, can it please be me?’
‘No chance, you’re off to Rouen, remember? Take one team
with you for now, the rest can keep an eye on the café for me. See if they can trace this girl Eve, see where she lives and so on. I have chatted with the General. He’s got you a staff car to use but you’ll need to provide someone to act as your driver. You have a Colonel’s uniform, I assume?’
‘I’ve a couple actually.’ Brunswick’s leg swung merrily.
* * *
‘Oh God, no,’ mumbled Michel as the blindfold was removed. He looked up, blinking against the light, realising where he was.
Two naked bulbs glared white light into a cold, windowless room. The walls were roughly painted in black. Michel grunted as he felt the metal restraints crunch tightly through his skin against his wrist-bones. Fixed as he was to some cold, metal chair, Michel heard a man leave the room, thudding the door shut. Another man paced quietly behind him, out of view. The dust beneath this man’s feet ground against the floorboards as he walked.
Michel could see a desk and a wooden chair in front of him, a few feet away. A single sheet of blank foolscap paper and a blunt pencil lay on it. Another chair lay empty in the far left corner.
Since the moment he had been bundled into the back of that truck, Michel had known that interrogation was inevitable. He had rehearsed his cover story many times, over and over in his head until he felt he could spill it out convincingly. He was prepared for interrogation, he felt confident he could hold out. What he wasn’t prepared for, however, was torture.
There were two baths, one on each side of the room, and to Michel’s left was a heavy, stained, steel-topped table, bolted to the floor with leather restraints hanging from it. The stains on it could only be blood. Michel felt his eyes open wide in fear. He began to pant. On the opposite side of the room was another table next to a small but unlit oven and a set of fire pokers. The room had clearly been prepared for him, like an altar.
The confidence Michel had felt earlier about interrogation evaporated. Fear moved in - a deep, primeval fear. Michel was not prepared for pain. His breathing became shallower. He tried to compose himself, telling himself that if it came to it, he would blurt his cover story out all in one go. That should work. But now the pressure to get his story absolutely perfect every time was mounting – the consequences of being found out to be lying were now obvious to him.
Michel could hear the man pacing back and forth, like a tethered panther. He did not dare look around to see. Instead, he faced straight ahead, closing his eyes against the room, against the possibilities of what could lay ahead. Michel rehearsed his story once again.
Then, outside the room Michel could hear a gramophone start to play something orchestral, classical. Regular, slow footsteps approached, getting louder. Michel heard the door creak open and the heavy footsteps enter. The heavy door clunked shut. The man who had been pacing back and forth behind Michel stopped and stood still. Nobody spoke. Michel’s short breaths stabbed into the cold air.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he watched a pair of immaculate black riding boots come into view and strut past him. Michel slowly looked up to confirm his worst fears.
There before him was Ritter. Bigger than Michel expected, Ritter walked across to the desk and serenely sat down, as if he was taking a seat at the theatre. Ritter rested his arm gently onto the table with the paper and pencil on it. Then Ritter looked directly into Michel’s eyes. The German’s eyes were as cold and hard as the room, and almost as black. Ritter’s mouth curled a tiny amount at the edges in a tight-lipped smile.
Ritter opened a drawer and took out an ashtray, which he placed on the table beside him, turning it a little to ensure it was perfectly positioned for him. Silently, he then reached into a pocket for a cigarette and took a long time lighting it, pulling the smoke deeply down before a luxurious exhale upwards. Michel watched the smoke float around the thick, sharp hooks that hung from the ceiling, then, his eyes as wide as a cornered rabbit, he stared back at Ritter.
Ritter bared his teeth in a soulless smile, so chilling that Michel froze in the glare.
Ritter took another slow drag from his cigarette. He was in no hurry. Then Ritter nodded to the man standing behind, who Michel had forgotten about. Michel heard the man walk around him. The man had thickset legs in military boots, no jacket, and a grey, collarless shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His hands were solid and clenched into fists. Michel looked up to see his face-
The sheer and sudden fury of the punches left Michel’s mind spinning, stunned. Before he could bring his head back up, another three blows hit him in the face from the other side, straight down onto his cheekbone. He heard himself cry out.
There was a pause. Michel exclaimed and slumped forward against his restraints, which cut deeper into his wrists. He quickly sat upright again to stop the pain. No sooner was he up when another three punches hit with a ferocity that left him unable to think, unable to react. Michel watched a drop of blood drip down in front of his eye; his chin hung slack. Michel’s head flopped to one side, his head empty of thought. All he could feel was shock.
He raised his eyes and BANG! BANG! BANG! Another three punches came in, all of them on his face and all of them with immense force. Michel’s head flew back. As soon as he allowed his head to slump forward, he was hit again and again. It was incessant, with his head flying backwards and forwards. The restraints dug deeper and deeper into his wrists, his fingers warmed by his own dripping blood.
The punches came always in threes, always fast, and always with a frenzy that left Michel stunned. Michel screamed out incomprehensibly. In a short pause, Michel blinked his eyes repeatedly as the colour went from his vision – everything was black and white and in and out of focus.
Michel’s assailant stood panting, legs wide apart, bent at the knees, knuckles reddened, waiting for the next order to strike. Ritter nodded. Michel closed his eyes as the man reached back to punch again.
After this, Michel was senseless. He knew he was and he couldn’t do a thing about it. The man who had done all the punching seemed to notice a change in Michel and relaxed a little.
Michel lurched forward and spewed vomit everywhere. As soon as Michel had finished, in this moment of vulnerability, another three punches rained into Michel’s face. Michel vomited again; his left eye refused to open when the retching stopped. Michel slumped forward.
Michel spat lumps from his mouth. ‘What do you want of me?’
Another furious battery of blows was launched against his face. Thick blood, mucus and vomit hung from his mouth in ribbons.
‘What do you want?!’
Another three punches. Michel decided to speak no more. What did they want?
Ritter sighed, as if he was bored. He finished his cigarette, stubbed it out into the ashtray, stood up and walked out.
‘Same time tomorrow, please.’ Ritter left and soon the music playing in the corridor outside stopped.
Michel sensed two men arrive and free him from the chair. His arms and head hung limp. He was carried to a dark and damp cell, which stank of urine. Michel couldn’t sleep. He could hear the quiet sobs of another man somewhere nearby. Michel heard the man pleading to a group of soldiers that went to collect him. Michel heard the firing squad in the courtyard.
It was Michel’s turn to start sobbing.
* * *
Having already measured out the length of antennae she would need to broadcast to London that night, Eve waited until it was dark before going out onto the narrow walkway on the roof to lay it out. She did her work bent from the hip so as not to create a silhouette. Her back ached as she clambered down the ladder and back into her apartment.
She listened intently at the door for any movement out on the landing before lugging her radio set, still in its suitcase, up towards the roof hatchway. Eve turned out all the lights except one table lamp she had placed on the floor especially to provide enough light to work by without letting light out onto the roof.
Eve connected the wireless into the mains, then connected the antennae to the radio set. She placed he
r coded message upright in the open lid of the radio-suitcase and checked her watch. The three minutes she had to wait before her appointed transmission time passed slowly. Eve glanced down towards her apartment door, listening for any signs of an intrusion - there was no way she would be able to explain this away if she was raided now.
With one minute to go, Eve flicked the power switch to on and the set began to whine gently as it warmed up. Eve checked the correct crystals were fitted into the frequency slot and placed the Morse key just to her right. Nervous, she double-checked everything.
The final minute dragged by, her hand hovering over the Morse key. Eventually, Eve started to transmit. She received the acknowledgement that London was listening before Eve quickly tapped out her message: CONTACT MADE. WELL ACCOMMODATED. TARGET IDENTIFIED AND CONFIRMED. MONITORING. WILL ASSESS TARGETS ROUTINE AND MOVEMENTS AND DECIDE HOW TO ESTABLESH TARGETS PLANS. DO NOT FEEL WATCHED AT PRASENT.
REGARDS TO MAUD.
London acknowledged again. Eve switched off quickly and checked her watch – she had taken only two and a half minutes, well under the seven-minute transmission restriction. She quickly wound the antennae up, locked the loft hatch and hid the wireless away. She listened at the front door and then the windows, barely breathing. It took some minutes for Eve to feel safe again. She sat down, poured out a glass and breathed deeply as she burned her cipher for the night in her ashtray.
* * *
It was the same two men that dragged Michel back to the interrogation room. He cried out a little as they pulled his restraints tight. Michel felt something burst in a wrist. Michel looked down and noticed that his vomit from yesterday was gone - in fact, all trace of yesterday’s beating had gone. The men shut the door as they left and, just like yesterday, someone started to pace back and forth behind Michel.