by David Gilman
‘Pascal, we will go with you as far as we can, as long as we can,’ said Juliet.
‘She’s right,’ said Jean Bernard, ‘there’s nothing for us here. We’re your group now.’
Mitchell looked at the huddled survivors, all anxious in that moment for someone to take responsibility. ‘We all have a score to settle,’ he said. ‘Chaval will take us across country away from the roads.’
Mitchell looked at the fearful child and extended his hand with a reassuring smile. She placed her hand in his. Mitchell turned away, the others following him towards the darkening sky; the billowing smoke curled behind them.
19
Chaval’s knowledge of the countryside kept them away from roads where the enemy might be patrolling. On the second night, as drenching rain beat down, he brought them to a blanched stone hut; its terracotta patina-tiled roof glistening in the wet suggested it would be warm, but the stone walls held their chill more readily than the forest. At least it offered a sanctuary and would keep them dry, and despite the pungent odour of animals that had been kept there the group flopped down exhausted.
Once Simone and Juliet had fallen asleep Jean Bernard eased himself towards Mitchell as he attended to his bloodied feet. ‘You must let me look,’ he insisted and helped peel off one of Mitchell’s socks. ‘I have powder that will dry those burst blisters and stop them from becoming infected.’ He scrabbled in his haversack.
‘Bucard told me to keep them dry but I haven’t managed that with the wet ground.’
‘Of course.’ The doctor began tending the wounds. ‘Bucard is a good man. He is like Chaval. Strong men who do not complain.’ He sprinkled powder on to Mitchell’s foot. ‘Like you.’
‘Oh, I complain all the time but it’s in my head,’ said Mitchell, wincing as the doctor trimmed off a small piece of torn skin.
The doctor smiled and then lowered his head to the task at hand. ‘You know, Pascal, what happened… you… you must not blame yourself. The SS either came to us by chance or they believed we were responsible. Either way… you understand? Like Juliet said, they were always going to come. Sooner or later.’
Mitchell fell silent. He glanced across to where Juliet and Simone slept entwined for warmth. ‘She’s a remarkable woman.’
Jean Bernard did not bother to raise his head. He knew whom Mitchell meant. ‘And has great courage. I have enormous respect for her. We have known each other since childhood.’
‘You’re a lucky man,’ said Mitchell quietly, the comment slipping out carelessly.
Jean Bernard smiled. It was him that Juliet and Simone snuggled close to for comfort during the cold nights. ‘She turns to me for warmth at night because she feels safe. There’s nothing more to it than that.’
Mitchell’s face betrayed his embarrassment. ‘I meant no offence, or to imply –’
The doctor raised a hand, cutting off any further apology. ‘None taken, my friend. Believe me, her husband was a man above the rest of us. No one else could take his place.’ He pushed the tin of foot powder and surgical scissors back into his haversack. ‘There, your feet will feel a lot better. I wish I had something like it for your grief, Pascal. Get some rest. Now it is we who look to you to keep us safe.’
*
After three more days of hard going low cloud lifted on the sixth morning and they heard a spotter plane criss-crossing the sky in the direction of Saint-Just. Despite the distance, they were fearful that any movement might attract attention and, on Mitchell’s insistence, stayed huddled in the forest’s dank chill for the morning. Mitchell had kept himself apart from the group when darkness fell as he tried to plan how best to proceed once he had reached the group of maquisards at Norvé. Before the massacre, Jean Bernard had got word to them that an agent had survived the air crash; it followed then that they would have advised London. Fear of discovery was now very much in his mind. He had been lucky so far and much of that luck was due to the training he had been given. As rushed as it had been something must have sunk in, a second nature had developed, ingrained by the instructors’ constant barrage. It was the killing that haunted him. The blurred images of the soldiers twisting and turning and the disembodied sense that it was someone else doing the shooting. His reason had deserted him, abandoning him to a visceral instinct for survival. No matter how analytical his life had been up to then, that had all changed. He was no longer the man he had been. And that made him fear for himself. He now bore the burden of his own massacre. Killing the sergeant and the officer might be justified but the unarmed men were victims of what, he did not know – perhaps a part of him that crawled back into the cave like a creature that lurked in shame but was ready to lash out again.
Despite the relentless pace of their march everyone was holding up well but it was obvious to Mitchell that the enforced rest was welcome. It had become a matter of pride to him to keep up his dogged pace in front of the younger men. Chaval was the closest in age to Mitchell but the poacher’s lifelong labour in the fields and foraging across hills gave him a natural resilience and strength that the middle-aged mathematician envied. Despite his aching muscles, Mitchell knew that he had lost weight and was fitter than he had ever been. Chaval gathered wild berries and mushrooms to supplement the food they had salvaged from Saint-Just but never was the thought of roasted rabbit or the comfort of a fire so tempting. Neither were enjoyed.
On the seventh morning, shivering from the night’s dampness, Mitchell hunched behind a ridge of trees with Chaval. The low cloud threatened drizzle which kept the spotter plane out of the sky.
‘We’re twenty kilometres from Norvé but we will have to take a big detour south of that place,’ said Chaval as Mitchell peered through his field glasses. ‘Saint-Hilaire is a field hospital and vehicle depot so it’s regular army down there. We might not get to Norvé by nightfall. Another cold night out here and it will start to wear some of us down.’
‘We’re going too slowly. Six days and we’ve covered, what? Seventy, eighty kilometres?’ said Mitchell.
‘It can’t be helped if we are to stay off the roads.’
There was no argument to be made. ‘Then we have to push harder. I want us with the Norvé group by nightfall,’ said Mitchell.
Chaval shrugged. ‘We can risk cutting across open countryside. There’s a small bridge across a river that I was going to use. Barely wide enough for a horse and cart so there would be no German vehicle patrols on it but if we get our feet wet downstream then we could cut off a couple of hours.’
Mitchell slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Skin is waterproof.’
*
They clambered down the hillside, zigzagging as Chaval followed animal tracks. At times the steepness of their descent slowed them further. Mitchell urged them on, refusing time to stop and rest. Simone’s youth served her well; it was the adults who felt the knee-jarring strain. Maillé complained but Drossier kept him in check. He of all people, he told Maillé, should be the one to bitch because he was wounded. The bickering went on for an hour until Mitchell called a halt and threatened to gag Maillé, tie him to a tree and leave him behind. Before the mechanic could complain at such treatment Simone asked, with the innocent smile of a child assassin, whether it would help if she carried Maillé’s haversack for him.
They went on in silence until they reached the narrow river. It was thirty metres across from bank to bank.
‘I’ll go across first,’ said Chaval. ‘See how deep it is. Shouldn’t be more than waist high.’
‘And that’ll come up to my chest,’ said Laforge.
Simone grinned. ‘Walk on tiptoe.’
‘We’re exposed here,’ said Mitchell. ‘Stay in the treeline and then once Chaval is across, Laforge and Bucard go next to help give covering fire if it’s needed. Then Jean Bernard with Drossier. Maillé and I will cover this bank. Then Juliet and Simone together. Maillé, then me.’ He nodded to Chaval. The men spread out to give themselves a clear view of the riverbank up- and downstream. Mitchell swore quie
tly to himself. It felt as though they were in the middle of nowhere but the German depot posed a risk even if it was now five kilometres or so away. He watched as Chaval gingerly stepped into the water and found his footing. The water flowed quickly and buffeted his legs. Once or twice it looked as though the big man might trip, which worried Mitchell: if someone that size was struggling then the others might be in danger. He crouched and ran to Juliet, slipping off his haversack; then he undid the length of coiled rope attached to its straps.
‘The current might knock Simone off her feet. I’ll carry her pack. Wrap a length of this around your wrists. If she stumbles you’ll have to steady her.’
Juliet nodded her understanding, doubled the rope’s length and fashioned a two-metre-long tie between them. At the centre of the river the water had reached Chaval’s thighs. Mitchell was thankful it was not as deep as he feared. The poacher reached the other side and waved on Laforge and Bucard, who stepped tentatively into the water; Chaval crouched on the far treeline covering them. Jean Bernard followed, striding confidently into the water, following the line the others had taken as he gave a steadying hand to Drossier.
‘All right,’ Mitchell said to Juliet and Simone. ‘Take your time. Find your footing and be careful you don’t twist an ankle on any boulders. Slow and steady.’
Mother and daughter edged into the river and Mitchell saw at once that the girl was struggling. She was, as Mitchell suspected, too slender to fight the current. She almost went down but Juliet hauled the rope, pulling her upright. ‘Get in there and help them,’ Mitchell told Maillé.
The mechanic hesitated, then slung the Schmeisser and shifted his pack as he waded in. He seemed strong enough to push against the current but he had stepped wide of where the others had crossed. His foot must have found a dip in the riverbed making him slip; he floundered and went down. The current dragged him but he twisted, raising an arm to throw himself face up and then kicked and struggled his way to the riverbank twenty metres further downstream, his cry of alarm sounding too loud in the settled quiet. Even the swirling water was no louder than an urgent whisper. Jean Bernard broke cover and ran to Maillé to haul him ashore as Chaval began wading into the water to help Juliet. Mitchell was already moving forward, raising an arm to silently halt Chaval’s advance. He needed the poacher to guard their crossing. The double pack and the Sten gun were cumbersome but he shifted their weight so they helped balance him. Simone was shivering, clinging to her mother, stopping both of them from moving. Juliet had turned their bodies to offer the least resistance to the flow. Mitchell reached them, braced himself against the insistent tug of water and stood between them and the rushing stream, easing their passage. Slowly they made progress until they were close enough for Chaval to take a couple of his big strides into the water and lift Simone clear. Juliet stumbled and instinctively reached out for Mitchell, who pulled her to him. Their faces were close; perspiration plastered strands of her hair to her cheek. He muttered encouragement and steadied her. As she pressed against him she smiled gratefully, whispered her thanks and then concentrated on reaching the bank and Chaval’s outstretched hand. A tantalizing thought struck Mitchell, because it seemed in that instant that an improbable intimacy had passed between them.
20
The chained dogs’ barking alerted those inside the small château. Lights appeared behind the opened carved doors as a man came to the entrance carrying a shotgun. Jean Bernard gently called his name and was beckoned forward. After a brief whispered conversation he turned and gestured the others to join him from where they were hiding behind the château’s outbuildings. This was the first step, Mitchell thought, in testing the security of the Norvé cell. If the rot started here then anyone being pushed further up the line to Paris was in danger of betrayal.
Mitchell and Jean Bernard were ushered down a long corridor in near darkness, following the oil lamp carried by the same man who had greeted them in the courtyard. Olivier Gaétan stood waiting by the warmth of a roaring log fire nestled in a medieval fireplace with an ornate mantel, typical of the period when the house was built. The grandeur of the edifice belied the worn rugs and frayed furnishings that told the story of a minor aristocrat who had known better times. Gaétan too seemed typical of the kind of man who would live in such faded glory. He was in his sixties, trim white moustache, a tall angular body ramrod straight with pinched features, who appeared to look down his beak of a nose at the unkempt men who had been ushered into his private quarters.
‘Monsieur Gaétan, this is the man I told you about when the aircraft crashed,’ said Jean Bernard.
The old patrician glanced at the clock on the mantel. ‘You were not expected, doctor,’ he said testily. ‘But by the look of you, it is a matter of some urgency.’
The man who had ushered them in looked to be more of a groundsman or gamekeeper than a house servant. His rough demeanour told Mitchell that he was a man capable of shooting other than a few game birds on the patrician’s estate.
‘There are five other men, a woman and a child with them. I have them in the scullery,’ he said.
Gaétan nodded. ‘Feed them and then hide them in the cellar beneath the workshop.’
‘It is Juliet Bonnier and her daughter,’ said Jean Bernard.
Her status as co-ordinator for the area around Saint-Just seemed to carry no weight with Gaétan. He acknowledged the information and dismissed the gamekeeper with a nod.
‘Saint-Just is destroyed,’ said Jean Bernard. ‘Retaliation for German soldiers being shot.’
‘And who did the shooting?’
‘I did. I am Colonel Pascal Garon,’ said Mitchell. ‘It was self-defence,’ he added. ‘The men I was with, those who accompany us now, they would have been killed had I not done so.’
‘Perhaps it would have been less costly to have let them die. I lost three good men ambushed by the Germans who were waiting at the drop zone when your plane did not arrive,’ said Gaétan. He shrugged. ‘The fortunes of war, colonel. Or perhaps the message was intercepted.’
‘Or perhaps there is a leak,’ said Mitchell.
The patrician seemed ready to accept such a possibility. ‘No matter how they came across my men, we can ill afford to suffer such losses. There are few of us.’
‘And your work here is much valued,’ said Mitchell.
‘Do not patronize me, colonel. We play a small part but it is for the glory of France and its future. It is not for the glory of Mr Churchill or the likes of Englishmen who think of themselves as pirates and regard this war is an adventure.’
‘There are men and women of other nationalities, Monsieur Gaétan, fighting this war. Including Frenchmen who are willing to return to their homeland and risk sacrificing their lives. And Madame Bonnier should be accorded respect and some privacy with her daughter. She has already endured some indignity since we left Saint-Just. It is not easy for a woman and a child to have the seclusion they need when travelling.’
Olivier Gaétan looked as though he was about to argue but something changed his mind and he nodded. ‘I will see that they are given a room to themselves. Now, colonel, how may I be of service?’
A sudden wave of tiredness swept over Mitchell and he barely resisted the urge to step closer to the fire and sink into one of the overstuffed settees. It might be only for a brief time, but the château offered safety. He shook his head. ‘I have to get into Paris.’
Gaétan stretched an arm against the mantel and gazed into the flames. His tone softened. ‘I am doing everything possible under difficult circumstances, Colonel Garon. I will have to get a courier into the city and pass you up the line to a safe house. Let us discuss it further in the morning.’
It was a dismissal.
*
The men sat around the kitchen table eating their first hot meal in days. A cauldron of broth sat on the cast-iron stove that warmed the room. Chaval told them that Juliet and Simone had been given food and taken to a room in the château. The poacher ladled out
bowls of the soup for the doctor and Mitchell. The hungry men had already torn into two loaves of rough grain bread. Mitchell and the doctor followed suit. Between mouthfuls, Jean Bernard spoke quietly to Mitchell.
‘Your plane might have been shot down through sheer bad luck, but if there is a leak in this circuit’s security then we must be wary of him using men we do not know to get you into Paris.’
‘I was thinking the same thing,’ said Mitchell. ‘There’s one place in the city I might be able to use.’
Jean Bernard ate hungrily. ‘We can play along with his suggestion. My sister has an apartment there. No one knows about it. Not even Gaétan. I’ve never warmed to him. He thinks France was lost back in the eighteenth century when the Bastille was stormed. We are all peasants as far as he is concerned. He hates the left and thinks communists hide behind every gun in the Resistance. Were it not for his wife he would be even more insufferable.’
So the old man wasn’t brittle because he lacked feminine company. He was simply a miserable bastard.
The shotgun-carrying servant looked in. ‘You finished?’
The men grabbed the last of the bread as Mitchell raised the bowl to his mouth and swallowed the remaining broth.
They were led back across the courtyard, their guide ignoring the barking dogs. He swung open one of a pair of wooden doors that led into a workshop. The space to one side was shared by three vehicles. One of the cars had cobwebs stretching between the wheel and the wheel arches.
‘An old Delage,’ said Drossier with undisguised envy. ‘Christ, he must have had some money to buy that.’
The second car looked to be polished and kept in working order. It was the more practical of the two, a four-door Citroën Traction Avant favoured not only by the French police but since the Occupation, also by the Germans. Maillé grunted with some satisfaction and pointed to the third car on blocks, a dust-smothered black vehicle with a thin red bloodline that swept along the vehicle’s curvaceous lines. ‘He likes his cars,’ he said.