by David Gilman
‘Very well,’ said Jean Bernard.
Juliet looked from one to the other. ‘You are making plans about me and Simone and you don’t ask my opinion. We are safer in the countryside. There are fewer Germans and less chance of being stopped.’
‘And if you arrive at another village? How long before someone learns you are from Saint-Just? How long before someone who’s afraid of SS reprisals betrays you? No, Juliet, I’m sorry but I believe the city gives you a chance to be lost in the crowd,’ said Mitchell.
‘He’s right,’ said Jean Bernard.
‘Very well,’ Juliet said. ‘But if we are stopped and questioned? We need a good story.’
‘Colis familiaux,’ said Mitchell.
Jean Bernard grinned and nodded. Juliet looked uncertain. The doctor quickly explained. ‘You’ve never lived in the city, Juliet. Food is always short. Even a cat or a dog is not safe from going into the pot. The Germans allow anyone in the city with relatives in the countryside to receive food parcels.’
‘I have money to buy food from Madame Gaétan,’ said Mitchell. ‘We might even get her to give us a couple of chickens in a cage. Jean Bernard’s sister can legitimately receive food parcels.’
‘But Simone and I, what part can we play in this? What would we be doing in Paris?’
‘You and Jean Bernard are engaged to be married. You’re a widow with a young daughter and here’s a professional man who has asked you to marry him. Once you’re there I want him to get in touch with a doctor I knew and who I hope still works at the American Hospital. I’ll give you a note by way of introduction. The hospital is still open, still being manned by American doctors. Most of the Americans living in Paris after America declared war in ‘41 were rounded up and sent to Frontstalag 122 internment camp.’
A look of incomprehension creased their faces. Mitchell realized that living in the small, insular community of Saint-Just they knew little of life beyond their own area. ‘Fifty miles north of Paris at Compiègne,’ he explained. ‘Many were then repatriated in exchange for Germans in America but there are still some working in Paris. But once you’re with Jean Bernard’s sister you and Simone will be safe and it will allow Jean Bernard to find work quickly. There is to be no mention of me being here. Not yet.’
‘All right. When do we go?’ said Juliet.
‘Tomorrow. There’s a train from Vichy that gets into Norvé at eleven. You’ll be in Paris before curfew.’
‘And the men?’ said Jean Bernard.
‘We keep this to ourselves for now. I’ll get the old man to use his car to take you to the station. He’ll give us a driver who’ll know a way to avoid patrols.’ He looked at the woman and man who had risked everything for him. ‘I have things to do before I get to Paris. Once I get there I will be in touch.’
‘When should I tell Simone?’ said Juliet.
‘Leave it to the last minute. I’ll see what food I can buy. It might not be much but it will help.’ He covered her hand with his own to reassure her. For a moment she looked in silence at this man who had fallen from the burning sky, and then gripped his hand tightly.
23
Olivier Gaétan posted men as lookouts on the approach to the château. He had sent others to reconnoitre the proposed landing zone for the Lysander that night. Madame Gaétan decided it would be she who would drive Juliet and the others to the station. The local German patrols knew her and would be more likely to believe she had relatives travelling than one of the men. The patrician’s wife understood Simone’s insecurity at being taken away from the Englishman with whom she had obviously formed a bond. It must have felt as if she were losing her father all over again. It had taken Mitchell and Juliet a half-hour to comfort the girl. Thankfully Jean Bernard’s presence finally helped assure her that where they were going would be safer and Mitchell promised her he would come to her in Paris. Once she had been mollified Madame stepped in and asked her to help choose what could be packed into the suitcase that they found in an attic room. Madame Gaétan had put together a selection of food she had been storing. Two jars of jam and a piece of smoked ham wrapped in cloth, along with a full wheel of cheese.
‘Will you really come to us in Paris?’ Juliet asked Mitchell. ‘Or are we unlikely to see you again?’
He watched as she folded her few clothes salvaged from the ruins of Saint-Just. ‘The moment it is safe I will come to you,’ he told her.
She stopped what she was doing and turned to face him. ‘I know nothing about you, but you have been kind to us. Simone and me.’
‘I destroyed everything you knew,’ said Mitchell.
She thought on it for a moment and nodded. ‘Every action has a consequence, Pascal. We all took our chances.’
They both fell silent and Mitchell wished he could walk with her, away from the tenseness of her departure for Paris and the impending night flight. He found himself saying, ‘My wife was shot by the SS in Paris. She was in the Resistance. The Gestapo are holding my daughter somewhere. I have a mission to complete but I also want to find her and get her home.’ It sounded more like a confession than an explanation.
Juliet could not mask her shock. ‘Pascal,’ she whispered, distraught. ‘I am so sorry.’
It served no purpose for him to explain any further but he did anyway. ‘I escaped from Paris two years ago. We were separated. I don’t know how that happened and sometimes I wonder whether she even wanted to go to England. The marriage had its problems; I can’t deny that. There was something wild in her. I was a simple mathematics lecturer. What she saw in me I’ll never know.’
‘Then one day I will tell you,’ said Juliet, and kissed his cheek.
*
Mitchell was thankful it was a clear day and that the sun offered some warmth. As the Citroën drove away Juliet and Simone waved their goodbyes through the rear window until the car turned out of sight down the country lane.
‘Better that she has gone,’ said Chaval as he stepped from the workshop to stand at Mitchell’s shoulder. ‘But she is a strong and brave woman. I hope Jean Bernard knows what he’s doing by taking her to Paris.’
No one had been told exactly where Jean Bernard was taking them. Mitchell turned back towards the house. ‘He knows what he’s doing, don’t worry.’ There was time to kill before Gaétan’s men left for the landing zone and Mitchell did not want Chaval and the others kicking their heels. ‘How many rats did you catch?’
‘Four. Nice slinky brown ones. I had Drossier gut them like you asked.’
‘All right, get the men together and find some twine and a needle with a big enough eyelet. It’s time to stitch them back up.’
Chaval raised an eyebrow and shrugged. Whatever the Englishman had in mind probably had something to do with teaching the men how to stitch wounds. Obviously, he was expecting trouble.
*
Drossier and Laforge gazed intently as Mitchell instructed Chaval to peel back a rat’s skin from its gutted chest and stomach cavity.
‘Maillé, give me that plastique,’ said Mitchel.
The mechanic handed him the palm-sized slab of explosive. ‘Now, we mould it,’ Mitchell told them. ‘Just like you do when you pack it on a rail track, only this time…’ he eased the elongated shape into the rat’s carcass, ‘… we shape it inside the rat. And then you can attach a short length of fuse with a number twenty-seven detonator crimped on one end and a copper tube igniter on the other. Then you place one of these in a locomotive’s coal bunker and when the dead rat is shovelled into the furnace, the fuse ignites and the plastique explodes.’
‘Killing the driver and the fireman,’ said Maillé.
‘Killing the German driver and fireman,’ said Mitchell. ‘We use these for the German freight trains going back to Germany. But we can also use the rats in factory boilers. And don’t forget to use them for a diversion and controlled explosions. If you don’t use a lit fuse’ – he reached for one of the timers – ‘use one of these. These give you time to plant the explosive
and be far enough away when it goes off. Shove the time delay fuse up the rat’s arse into the plastique and then stitch up the vermin so it kills its Nazi brothers.’
Bucard grinned. ‘I like it. I knew some of the demolition men laid booby traps when we fought the rearguard but this is neat. No one picks up a dead rat but sooner or later the Germans will realize what they might be.’
‘If they do then they’ll spend a lot of time being cautious. We soak up their security. And then every time they find a dead rat it will slow them down. All right, stitch this one up and then, Bucard, you and Drossier pack another carcass, Chaval, you and Laforge and Maillé do one and then all of you have a go individually,’ Mitchell instructed them. He gestured to Maillé. The mechanic sidled over to him. ‘That Peugeot on the blocks,’ said Mitchell. ‘Have you had a look at it?’
Maillé shrugged. ‘It looks all right. I reckon the old man didn’t want to run more than one car.’
‘When you’re done here, put your eye over it. Don’t let any of his men see you. See if it will go.’
‘We going to nick it?’ Maillé said with knowing grin.
‘Just have a look and let me know.’ Mitchell turned away. At least, he thought, he had given Maillé a sense of purpose. He hoped that that might soften his inherent belligerence.
*
Gaétan found Mitchell sitting outside the kitchen, the chair rocked back against the wall, his face turned to the sun.
‘Everything is set for tonight. I have alerted my men,’ said Gaétan.
Mitchell nodded. He was lucky to be getting a flight and the wireless operator it brought. Only on nights immediately before and after a full moon was visibility good enough for the pilots to navigate their way. And there were few nights each month when flights could operate.
‘Where is your transmitter?’ said Mitchell. ‘In the château?’
‘No. It is the same type your people give your operators. We strap it to a bicycle and move around. It makes it more difficult should they use radio detection vans in the area. But so far we have been fortunate. The vans are further north, nearer the bigger towns. Not so many here, but we do not take unnecessary chances. When you are in Paris with your operator, be vigilant. The Germans are very good at detecting signals. They use grey baker’s vans with the direction-finding equipment inside. That much we know. And once they track a careless operator, then many people can be rounded up.’ He gave an almost imperceptible shrug. ‘Many have been.’
‘I’ll be careful.’
‘Of course you will. But it is easy to make a mistake. And there are enough people who will notice.’
‘As I said, I have lived in Paris, Monsieur Gaétan.’
‘Oh, and what do you think has happened since you were last here? You think you know how to live in an occupied city? Trust me, it is the small things that can trap a foreigner. How do you like your coffee?’
Mitchell frowned.
‘Come now. How do you like it? I will go and fetch it for you myself. Give me your order. Humour me.’
‘Noir. I drink coffee black.’
‘Then you would be immediately suspect, colonel. No one orders their coffee black. There’s not enough milk. Not in Paris. There is only black coffee. Eh? Small things, my friend.’
It was a good tip and Mitchell filed the information away. ‘Perhaps I shall stick with alcohol,’ he said, trying to distract the old man.
‘Then you know the clubs and bars. A perfect place to make contacts and a breeding ground of informers.’
‘I believe I still have friends in the city.’
‘Then forget them,’ the old man said. ‘Forget their names. Wipe them from your memory. If you’re picked up the Gestapo will soon get them from you.’ He sighed. ‘And we too will be dead.’ He patted Mitchell’s arm. ‘You don’t need me to tell you any of that. One’s nerves can be fraught at times like this. And I worry for my wife. She takes great risks. Forget I said those things.’
‘I take them as fair warning.’
Gaétan nodded. ‘The landing zone will be ready to be lit an hour before midnight. They think there will be some passing cloud but there will be enough moonlight for the pilot to find us.’
‘Then I’ll brief Chaval and the others.’
‘You will go with my men?’ said Gaétan.
‘Of course. You don’t?’
‘If I am caught red-handed then the circuit is finished. If my men are taken and tortured then I can proclaim my innocence and say that they had a grudge against me. That they must be communists working for me without me knowing it all these years. You see. We need to lie like thieves to survive. We all take our chances and we all dread the knock on the door.’
‘They knock?’
Gaétan smiled. ‘Quite so, colonel.’
‘Jean Bernard and Juliet?’ said Mitchell.
‘Safely aboard the train. They went through the security checks without any trouble. And I have sent one of my men into the city to secure you a safe house.’
‘Thank you.’ Mitchell still planned to make his own arrangements but Gaétan was the key Resistance controller in this area and it served no purpose to openly challenge his authority. ‘How many men tonight?’
‘If yours are to accompany you then only three more. One of my men will take our horse to carry the weapon boxes from the plane.’
‘And the chef de terrain?’
‘My most trusted man, Edmond.’
‘The one with the shotgun? I call him the gamekeeper.’
‘Which he is. And why he is in charge of meeting agents and supply drops. A gamekeeper is like a doctor: they have a permit to be out after curfew. He will go ahead and see the lie of the land. If stopped by a patrol then he will not be arrested and can warn the others. He has been with my family since he was a boy.’
‘And you trust him implicitly?’
‘Of course. With our lives.’
‘So he has information about your operations?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Then, like you, he would know where the missing Guy Neuville is.’
‘I told you. We do not have this information.’
Mitchell eased the chair down on to all four legs as a cloud passed before the sun. ‘Monsieur Gaétan, you and your most trusted man would not allow a British agent to simply disappear. Your lives would be at risk. So you would track him down and kill him to protect yourselves or you would have hidden him somewhere with a means of checking on him. He’s a man who might be worth selling to the Germans when the bad times come. And if you betray him you keep all your other men in play.’ He stood and faced the patrician.
‘I would betray him?’ Gaétan said indignantly. ‘You think me without honour?’
‘Perhaps we would all betray each other if enough pain was brought to bear. Why do you think I sent Juliet, Simone and Jean Bernard ahead of the agent being flown in? I don’t want them knowing of each other’s existence. The less one knows the better. They are out of the way. But if the enemy puts a gun against your wife’s head then you would tell them everything. We are all human, and we are all fearful. Courage will take us only so far. Once the drop is over tonight I need to know where he is and you will tell me.’
24
They waited in the chill night air, their eyes adjusting to the shapes of the land. The darkened track they had travelled down cut through the high hedgerow banks; it was too narrow for a lorry to pass along, so German infantry would have to advance on foot if the résistants were to be discovered. But Mitchell and the others had seen and heard nothing since they had been in place. They lay on the cold grass, cramped but uncomplaining. The L-shaped landing lights had been laid out but were not yet lit. No one spoke, every man listening for any unusual sound that might travel and which would indicate the presence of a German ambush.
Mitchell gazed into the night sky. It was nearly time. He felt the edge of tension claw at his stomach. He was nervous not only for those on the ground but for the aircraft. Th
e pilot needed 150 yards for his landing and this field gave him that with another fifty to spare. He would turn the aircraft at the end of the beacons and keep his engine running because the Lysander’s batteries were prone to fail if the engines were switched off for too long and could drain quickly when restarting. Mitchell’s briefing before his ill-fated parachute drop had told him all he needed to know about the skill required and risks involved. Flying low, the pilots would navigate by torchlight with a map folded on their lap. There was room enough for one passenger behind them. Two at a push. He imagined the agent sitting silently with complete trust in the man up front. He would not have spoken to the pilot, who would not have been told anything about the person clutching a heavy suitcase containing their wireless. And no doubt, Mitchell thought, the passenger would know the slow-flying aircraft was a sitting duck. A matte-black-painted duck hard to detect in the night sky but with a large Perspex cockpit that could shine in the moonlight. Mitchell lay on the dew-laden grass remembering how anxious he had been when told how and where the plane he was supposed to have been on would cross the Normandy coast. How low it would come across German held-territory, searching for familiar landmarks, and how, south of Chartres, somewhere near Blois the Special Duties pilot would fly over the River Loire and turn east to find his landing zone in the pitch darkness of the French countryside with little more than a dozen flickering beacons to land by. How any pilot did that confounded Mitchell. His own mathematical skills might have lent some weight to the pilot’s expertise, yet they were an abstract science: he could not imagine himself adrift in the night sky. No more, he corrected himself, than he could have imagined himself adrift in occupied France. His reverie was broken by the distant clattering sound of the Lysander’s engine. Mitchell and the men readied themselves to light the beacons. As Mitchell stood clear of the hedgerow facing the approaching sound the men ran forward, each to a flare lantern. Mitchell tilted the torch and aimed its beam skyward, pressing out the Morse call sign to confirm the pilot’s destination. The letter P for Pascal blinked up into the darkness, his finger pressing and releasing the switch. Dot dash dash dot. His inner ear heard the rhythmic sound as surely as his finger had been on a Morse key: di dah dah dit, di dah dah dit. The engine pitch altered.