“I thought you might have left already,” Papa ventured cautiously. Even though the test-drive had technically been a success, he knew that Christian was still furious with him for “gambling” with the car before it was finished.
“I was going to leave,” Christian replied. “But then Bertrand rang me.” He didn’t look angry anymore—just grim. “I guess we have work to do.”
As soon as we got back to the village, we headed straight for the bar to discuss our next move. Camille was nowhere to be seen, but I’d heard some of the older villagers discussing a heated argument between Victor and Philippe.
Philippe wanted to sign up for the army and go to the front line, but his father had forbidden him to even try. He would find some other way for his son to serve his country, he had been overheard shouting. Enraged, Philippe had shut himself away in his room, refusing to come out for days.
The mood in the bar was tense. A few locals were huddled round the radio, listening to government broadcasts about what was happening with Germany while we took our usual table by the door.
“There has to be another way,” Christian sighed as he slumped down in his seat. “After all this work, to simply destroy everything…”
“If you can think of one, tell us,” my father said, scowling.
“What about the Paris Motor Show?” Christian asked him anxiously.
“What motor show? There won’t be one.” He ground his pistachio shell into the table testily.
“The important thing is that the Nazis don’t find it,” I insisted.
“You mean Ferdinand Porsche,” my father muttered. “You’re assuming he even knows about the car—let alone this village.”
“Angelo’s got a point,” Christian told him. “If Bertrand’s right, he’s already got his spies looking everywhere. It won’t take them long to work out that Bertrand used to test cars here.”
My father looked like he was going to argue, then changed his mind. “Fine,” he said, pushing his chair back with a determined scrape. “Then, if we have no choice, we do it now. Tonight.”
“But where?” I shrugged.
Papa thought for a moment. “In the barn.”
“The one we crashed into?” I asked skeptically. “What if Benoît won’t let us?”
“Then we don’t tell him,” he replied with a mischievous glint in his eye.
Less than an hour later, Christian, my father and I had driven the last of the prototypes down to the barn. Two of the mock-ups were barely roadworthy, but luckily the route from the workshop, as I knew only too well, was almost entirely downhill.
Christian took charge of the proceedings.
“Break them up into the smallest parts you can—the smaller the better. Then bury them around the barn. No one will notice them amongst all the other rusty junk.”
I looked at the vehicles doubtfully. “There’s no way we can bury all this.”
“We’ve got no choice,” Christian insisted.
Suddenly I heard a noise and froze. “Listen.”
“What is it?” my father whispered. Christian put a finger to his lips and crept to the door.
At first there was nothing. Then we all saw at once.
Across the field, three figures were approaching with oil lamps swaying in the darkness.
“Who is it?” I asked, unnerved.
Christian looked closely; then his face fell. “Victor,” he hissed.
“What does he want?” my father said, and cursed.
We would know soon enough. After a few moments Victor approached the door to the barn. He was accompanied by Benoît and Félix.
“Ah, Victor…” My father smiled, trying to appear casual. “Have you come to settle the bet we won the other night?”
“Forget the bet,” Victor barked. His mood had changed. His usual smug sneer had vanished. “You’ve come to bury the cars,” he said accusingly. “Don’t bother denying it. I overheard.”
My heart sank.
“What’s it to you if we have?” Papa asked coldly.
Benoît stepped forward. “Last time I checked, this was my barn,” he muttered with a little flicker of cunning at the corner of his mouth.
My father returned the smile. “My mistake. We’ll go elsewhere.”
He made to leave, but Victor stepped in front of him to block his exit. “I don’t think so,” he growled.
My father eyed him closely, trying to read him.
Christian quickly stepped between them, all smiles. “Is there a problem?” he asked in a conciliatory manner.
Victor turned to him slowly and gave him a hard stare. “Your cars are the problem.”
“What about them?” my father asked, his eyes flinty with hate now.
Victor turned back to him and looked thoughtful. “They’re for French people, yes?”
Papa looked at him, a little thrown by the question. “Yes, but—”
“Then no German soldier is getting his hands on them,” Victor told him defiantly.
For a second I couldn’t believe my ears. “Wait a minute. You—you’re here to help us?” I stammered.
“You can’t bury them all in my barn, can you?” Benoît grinned, gums peeling back to show his two rotten pegs.
Christian, my father and I glanced at each other with incredulous smiles.
“Trust me,” Victor assured us, “the cars will be much harder to find if we scatter the parts around the whole village.”
“But what if the Germans find out you’ve helped us?” I blurted.
“Angelo’s right,” Christian said. “You could be killed.”
It was Félix’s turn to speak. “That is why everyone will do their part. That way we are all guilty.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You’d do this for us?”
Victor looked at me, astonished. “Absolutely not.” He sniffed. “We do it for France.”
Benoît pulled his creaky old back as upright as he could manage. “Some of us are too old or too young to fight in the war. But this is one way we can do something,” he announced proudly.
Astonished, Papa stepped forward and thrust out his hand. For a moment Victor looked at it uncertainly; then he shook it firmly.
“Together we stand,” my father declared.
“Together,” came back six voices in unison.
Within the hour, almost every inhabitant of the village was crammed into the bar in the main square. Those who couldn’t fit in spilled out onto the pavement, jostling and craning to listen. A scruffy little boy of no more than six whose mother took in washing scurried under the legs of those in front to feed news to stragglers at the back.
Victor climbed unsteadily onto a chair to address the impromptu gathering. He’d put his waistcoat on over his braces, and was now wearing a pair of small, academic-looking glasses. This normally signified that he was on important municipal business. He cleared his throat and the congregation finally fell silent.
“As elected mayor of this parish, with all the incumbent powers and responsibilities vested in me by my office—” he began stuffily. Almost immediately his speech was derailed by a heckler at the back.
“Get on with it, you pompous old windbag!”
A loud guffaw of laughter went up from the crowd, and Victor snatched off his glasses and scowled toward the back of the room to see who the culprit was. After a moment the laughter subsided and he indignantly returned the glasses to his nose. He cleared his throat and continued where he’d left off.
“We are a proud people,” he continued, more briskly this time. “None more so than the citizens of this village. As I look amongst you I am proud to be called not just your mayor, but—I hope—your friend.” There were one or two raised eyebrows around the room, and for a moment Victor’s smile faltered. He gave his forehead a quick dab with his handkerchief and pushed on.
“As you all know, some time ago a group of people, friends of Monsieur Hipaux, came to stay in our village. They’re standing here tonight at my
side.”
I felt suddenly self-conscious as, one by one, everyone’s gaze fell on me.
“I think it’s fair to say that many of us were suspicious when they first arrived,” Victor declared. “Myself included. Too often the rural backbone of this country has been ignored by the so-called elite from the cities, as if we don’t exist.”
I glanced up at my father, alarmed at where this train of thought was leading. Victor was obviously starting to get into his stride now.
“But it is the good people of this village, and hundreds just like us the length and breadth of this country, who keep this nation alive, put food on its tables and clothes in its shops. Without us, all those fine fellows in their fancy cars and palatial homes would cease to exist….”
Victor suddenly hesitated, sensing he was getting carried away.
“As I was saying”—he smiled awkwardly—“even I had my doubts about their motives. But I stand before you now a changed man, because these people didn’t come here to make some luxury car to sell at their fancy motor show. They came here to make a car for us. For the working man…”
I saw Victor’s eye alight on the stony face of Marguerite, scowling up at him. “And woman,” he added hastily. “It may not look like much,” he continued. “In fact, it looks like a heap of junk….” I wasn’t sure whether to raise an objection to this, but decided against it as Victor pressed on. “But it’s ours. The car these people have designed is going to put villages like ours back on the map, where they belong.”
Suddenly his voice took on a darker tone. “But be sure of one thing: all this will have been for nothing unless we stop the enemy in its tracks.”
His voice rang out through the room like a hammer striking an anvil.
“This war is about our freedom, about our right to be who we are. And nothing symbolizes that more than the car we all witnessed up in that field. That car is our freedom. It is everything this country has ever stood for. And if it falls into the enemy’s hands—and make no mistake, they will come looking for it—then the war will already have been lost.”
For a moment there was silence in the bar. Victor had surpassed himself with his stirring call to arms. But had it worked? Would the villagers be willing to risk everything for the sake of the Tin Snail?
Having found her voice at last, Marguerite was the first to speak up.
“So what do you suggest we do? Throw bread at them?”
A titter of amusement ran through the bar.
“I dare say one of your loaves could wipe out half an armored division,” Victor snorted, making Marguerite’s jaw tighten like steel.
“What I suggest,” he continued quickly, “is something far simpler. We help them destroy the cars.”
The room descended into confusion and Victor raised his voice above the hubbub. “I will be dividing all of you up into groups. Each group will then be responsible for taking away one of the prototypes and dismantling it into the smallest pieces possible. Nothing—I repeat, nothing—must be left behind. Every nut, bolt and screw must be hidden as far and wide as possible.”
Within the hour something resembling a strange-looking crew was striding toward Benoît’s barn, armed with spanners, hammers, hacksaws and just about every farm implement they could lay their hands on at a moment’s notice.
“Just think,” Christian said, turning to me wryly. “This way we get to win the war and stick it to Ferdinand the Fritz.”
Within minutes the villagers had descended on the prototypes like packs of dogs, wheeling them away and stripping them to the bone—or crankshaft. Several of the larger items wouldn’t need much disguising at all—they were simply returned to their original homes. So Félix got many of his blacksmith’s tools back; some he hadn’t even realized had gone missing. Several items also found their way back into Bertrand’s scullery, including a large washboard, a bucket and an assortment of kitchen utensils.
I was due to help my father and Christian with the task of dismantling the final prototype—the only successful model and the most vital to hide. But Victor and his small band of villagers were struggling with the one Bertrand and I had blown up in the top field several months earlier. One of the wheels had dropped off, and much of the undercarriage had been scorched to a cinder when the magnesium caught fire.
“Angelo,” my father called across to me, “why don’t you help Victor?”
For a moment I was unsure. Perhaps part of me was still getting used to the idea of Victor as a comrade. Helping him would also mean working alongside Philippe, who had now reluctantly joined us. After his remarks about Camille, I still wasn’t ready to forgive him, even if we were all on the same side now. But I was keen to make sure that every single prototype was properly broken up.
My father must have seen my hesitation.
“Go. Christian and I will take care of this.”
“I’ll help you,” Camille offered, coming over to join me.
“You’re not still angry with me?” I asked. It had been only three days since I’d crashed the car into the barn. Maybe I’d imagined that she had started to like me.
“Yes,” she said matter-of-factly. “But at least this way you won’t be able to take me on any more test-drives.”
I left my father and Christian to deal with the latest prototype and set off after Camille to help the others.
Some time later we descended on the graveyard next to the church armed with pickaxes and spades. Victor had hit on the novel idea of burying some of our car parts in an old grave.
“Shouldn’t we ask someone first?” I ventured.
“I’m the mayor,” he announced. “What more permission do you need?”
I saw Philippe smirk to himself, pleased to see me put in my place.
Soon we were all busily digging and picking away at the grave. Suddenly, round the back of the church, a door opened and the pastor, a timid and sickly young man called Grévoul, who had only recently been ordained, came scurrying out, his nightclothes billowing in the breeze. It turned out that he’d been called away to Boutonne on parish business and had missed the meeting. The sight of a group of men digging up a grave clearly filled him with terror.
“Stop! Stop!” he hollered as he raced across the cemetery, the breeze whistling around his ankles. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Even when Victor had managed to calm him down and explain that we were not grave robbers but on top-secret municipal business, he looked deeply uneasy. But Victor was in his stride now. As the pastor watched, ghostlike in his nightshirt, we resumed our digging. Soon our spades clunked against the wood of the old coffin.
The pastor clutched a handkerchief to his mouth in horror. “Please tell me you don’t intend to open it!”
“We don’t need to.” Victor beamed, the gold fillings in his teeth glinting in the moonlight. “We’re going to hide everything underneath, then put the coffin back on top.”
The pastor smiled falteringly. I was sure he was close to fainting, but his knees held out long enough for him to see an assortment of gear cogs, crankshafts and gaskets safely posted under the coffin and the earth shoveled back on top.
For tonight, at least, our work was done. Now all we had to do was sit back and hope the Germans didn’t come after all.
After Victor had calmed the pastor’s nerves with a little brandy, I returned to the manor house. To my surprise, Christian was already back, stowing a suitcase in his latest sports car.
“You’re leaving?” I asked, confused.
“I have to,” he replied. “My mother is terrified there’ll be an invasion, so I promised I’d get back to Paris and help her pack up.”
“But what about the prototype?”
“Don’t worry about that,” he assured me. “Your father is out there now, stripping it down to the last nut. I wouldn’t wait up for him. He’s going to be a while yet.”
“I should go and help him,” I said, turning to head back out of the gates.
“You won
’t find him,” Christian insisted. “He’s determined to spread every part as far and wide as possible. He could be miles away. Get some sleep. He’ll be back by morning.”
He threw the last of his things into the car before planting a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
“I’ll see you up in Paris in a few days, OK?” he said, painting on a positive smile.
I nodded, suddenly feeling a cloud of despair descend on me.
He must have sensed it because he pulled me into his arms and gave me a fierce embrace. “You mustn’t worry,” he said. “With any luck we’ll have kicked these Germans back where they belong before the month’s out.” But I could see that he believed it even less than I did.
“It’s not just that,” I sighed. “It’s everything. This car was going to make things all right again. Now they’re worse than ever.”
Christian fixed me with a stern look. “What does Bertrand always say? Some things aren’t meant to be. The rest aren’t meant to be yet.”
“You think something good can come of this?” I asked in disbelief. “Everything we’ve worked on is in pieces, two meters under the ground.”
Christian gently raised my chin with his finger. “Your idea was brilliant. And one day it will take the world by storm. Just not yet. Now get some sleep and I’ll see you in Paris.”
Moments later I watched the sports car churn up the gravel as Christian roared out of the courtyard onto the bumpy track outside. I listened to it clatter its way down the hillside and up the other side to the village until it was finally gone.
For a while all was silent; then a fox cried somewhere far off in the night—probably the one I’d narrowly missed. I wondered if my father could hear it too as he buried the last remnants of the Tin Snail, possibly forever.
In the stillness of the night, I found it hard to comprehend that somewhere just beyond the French border, bombs might already be falling.
Several hours later I was huddled under a blanket in Bertrand’s study when I was woken by a gentle nudge on my shoulder. It was my father. As I stirred from my sleep, I saw that his face was covered in dirt.
The Tin Snail Page 13