Night Flight to Paris

by David Gilman

  Chaval nodded. ‘Fuck the gamekeeper.’ He raised the bottle to his lips and then passed it to Laforge who swigged and made the same toast, and then Maillé and Drossier followed.

  Drossier passed the bottle to Mitchell. ‘We’re in this together, Pascal. Why should we be the only ones with a thick head in the morning? The others nodded and grunted their agreement. Mitchell took the bottle and took a pull of the burning liquid.

  ‘Fuck the gamekeeper,’ he spluttered.

  *

  Ginny Lindhurst had kept her distance from the weary men, letting them curse the war and the loss it had brought them. When the morning came she felt the same kind of nervousness she had experienced before climbing into the Lysander for her flight to France. The men said their goodbyes to Madame Gaétan and her husband and piled into the Peugeot. Once again she was to be alone and dependent upon her own resources. However, Mitchell’s quiet reassurance steadied the doubts that she kept hidden from him, and the thought that she would see him again soon comforted her and helped steel her resolve. These were still early days, she told herself; when she began the work she had been sent to do, this constant trepidation would surely leave her. She would have other things to concentrate on. She stood with Madam Gaétan and watched the sleek car disappear from view.

  The Peugeot’s suspension sank under the weight of the men inside. Maillé was given pride of place behind the steering wheel with Mitchell at his side. The other three men squeezed uncomfortably in the back with the smallest of them, Drossier, lying almost across their knees, his back propped against the door. Mitchell had a folded map on his lap with the route to Thompson’s village marked out by Gaétan.

  Within four hours Mitchell and the men had been lost twice. The narrow country lanes were unmarked and were it not for the path of the sun and Chaval’s countryman’s eye for nature’s signs they would have spent even longer traversing the labyrinthine back roads. As they came to yet another unmarked T-junction, Laforge suggested they turn right, Drossier left. Chaval insisted they needed to be going straight ahead, but the road did not give them that choice.

  ‘Wait,’ said Mitchell. He pushed open the door and clambered on to the car’s bonnet and then the roof. He raised the field glasses and swept the horizon over the hedgerows and trees. As he traversed left to right he saw movement in the distance. Stationary vehicles were just about visible through a distant treeline. He held his breath. Whoever it was must also be lost. As far as he could make out there were a half-dozen vehicles with, like him, men standing on the top. His grip tightened on the binoculars. Their backs were to him but the pennant that fluttered from a whip aerial showed the SS skull and crossbones. He instinctively ducked and slid down on to the ground.

  ‘SS,’ he said as he slammed closed the door.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Maillé. ‘Where?’

  ‘Ahead. Right across the fields. Must be a mile or more.’

  ‘Which way are they heading?’ said Chaval.

  ‘Right to left as far as I could tell. And they look as lost as we are.’

  ‘If they’re lost we could ambush them,’ said Maillé.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Laforge.

  ‘Listen!’ said Maillé, twisting around to face the men in the back. ‘London sent us ammunition and explosives. If they’re the bastards who did the slaughtering in Saint-Just –’

  ‘No ambush,’ said Mitchell. ‘We wouldn’t stand a chance.’

  ‘We should try!’ Maillé insisted. ‘We could cut them down while they’re stationary. Half of them will be taking a piss on the side of the road, cocks in their hands not guns, the others looking at maps. Christ, we could get them in a crossfire.’

  ‘No,’ said Mitchell. ‘We run from them. As far and fast as we can.’

  Laforge rubbed a nervous palm across his face. ‘The old man never mentioned SS around here, did he?’

  ‘How could he know?’ said Drossier. ‘We’re miles away from his area. Pascal?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Mitchell, but kept the thought to himself that the circuit might have sprung a leak again. Coincidence was a fine thing, but it being the SS rather than a normal German patrol raised the stakes. ‘Chaval, Drossier, Laforge, out. Go left and right. No more than a few hundred metres. See if there any roadside marker stones. Maillé stays here. I’ll keep watch. If I see or hear any movement I’ll whistle.’

  The men tumbled from the car. Chaval ran forward and instructed the others which way to go, then all of them disappeared from view.

  ‘If a patrol comes either left or right down that road we’re caught in the open,’ Maillé moaned.

  ‘Turn off the engine. Stay behind the wheel,’ said Mitchell. He left the car door open and clambered back up on to the car’s roof. He crouched, keeping his profile below the hedgerow, and then cautiously peered above it. The sun was behind his left shoulder so there was no chance of its rays glinting from the binoculars’ lenses and if the SS were looking his way they would be looking into the glaring sun. They were still there. Their vehicles silent. Mitchell looked at the tops of the trees and saw them quiver slightly from the approaching breeze. He and his men were downwind of the Germans. He strained to pick up any shouted commands, but the voices were so indistinct as to be unintelligible. And then he heard the unmistakable sound of engines starting up. He dared to watch a moment longer and saw they were moving off to his left in the direction they faced. He slid down the car bonnet and opened the map, desperately searching for his own location in case the road in front of him met the road the Germans were taking.

  Laforge ran quickly back into view. ‘There’s a marker stone a couple of hundred metres to the right. It’s ancient, but from what I could see there’s the village called Bussy. Seven kilometres away,’ he said.

  Mitchell scoured the map, his finger tracking back and forth. ‘That’s it. Bussy is ten kilometres from where we need to be and there’s a forest there where we can lay up. Get the men back.’

  Laforge ran to the junction and gave a low whistle as Mitchell studied the map.

  ‘Are those bastards going to catch up with us, Pascal?’ said Maillé.

  Mitchell shook his head and folded the map. ‘Not today. They’re going the wrong way and there’s no road that tracks back on to this one.’

  The men returned and Mitchell told them what Laforge had discovered. ‘Bussy is ten kilometres from Furchette, which is where we need to be.’

  The car doors slammed. Maillé gunned the car.

  29

  Peter Thompson gazed at the stocky, unshaven stranger, his face burnished by the weather, who removed his cap and eased the garage workshop door closed behind him. Thompson’s heart beat faster.

  ‘Monsieur Ferrand?’ said Mitchell. ‘Charles Ferrand? I was at the house and your wife said I’d find you here.’ Mitchell gave a reassuring smile, which seemed to ease the man’s tension. He had been leaning over the raised bonnet of an old car when Mitchell had entered and in a reflex of fear his hand had gripped a large spanner. There was no mistaking the look of anxiety that crossed the man’s features. He was younger than Mitchell by ten years and his slender build and hands belonged more to a concert pianist than a car mechanic and secret agent.

  ‘How can I help you?’ said Thompson.

  ‘I have a car that’s running rough. A Peugeot 402. People in the village said you were the man to see.’

  Thompson stared at the visitor. He didn’t look like a member of the plainclothes Milice and he wasn’t German by any stretch of the imagination. But if he had a decent car and fuel to run it then he had influence with someone in authority. ‘Where’s your car?’

  ‘A couple of kilometres from here.’

  ‘It’s broken down?’

  Mitchell took a step closer. His voice lowered; the smile vanished. ‘No, it’s hidden in the forest along with five maquisards.’

  Thompson was visibly shaken. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Alfred Korte,’ said Mitchell in English.


  Stricken, Thompson stumbled back. He barged into a tool trolley, nearly fell and then helplessly pressed his back against a work bench. ‘Christ, you’re an agent. How did you find me? Are you going to kill me?’

  Mitchell raised a hand in an attempt to calm him. ‘Peter, it’s all right. I won’t harm you. That’s not what I’m here for.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter.’

  ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘You know how. When you went missing you must have known they would send someone else and that person would have to go through Norvé.’

  ‘The bastard betrayed me.’

  ‘No, I convinced him.’

  ‘London sent you to replace me?’

  ‘To find Korte. And the wireless operator in Paris has not been transmitting on his schedule.’

  ‘Ory. Alain Ory. He must have been taken. He may even be in hiding.’

  ‘You abandoned him and Alfred Korte.’

  He shuddered. ‘I wish they had never asked me to come here.’

  ‘You volunteered.’

  Thompson nodded. He wiped his oily hands on a rag and spent too much time wringing the cloth. Eventually he spoke. ‘I thought I could do some good. But… panic seized me. My nerve went. The Gestapo were everywhere. Some of the gendarmes were more brutal than the bloody Nazis. And they had informers everywhere.’ Sweat had broken out on his face. His hands trembled.

  Mitchell stepped closer and offered him a cigarette. ‘Easy, Peter. I just need information.’

  Thompson managed a smile. ‘Haven’t had a proper smoke for ages. Mostly roll-ups these days.’ He bent his head to the flare of the match Mitchell cupped in his hands. ‘People here haven’t questioned me,’ he said, the cigarette seeming to calm his nerves. ‘We told them I had lived in another département. That I had a heart condition that stopped me being called up to fight. I have a knack for fixing things,’ he said almost apologetically. ‘They appreciate that. A university degree wasn’t much use to me after all, was it?’

  Mitchell remained unimpressed by Thompson’s self-pity. ‘You’re a serving British army officer. And now you’re a deserter. You ever go back home you’ll spend a long time in jail but when the Allies land you could be shot.’

  ‘God help me but I tried, you know. I didn’t just cut and run. I reached Korte and was ready to get him out but it was a trap. Someone in the circuit betrayed us.’

  ‘Any idea who?’

  Thompson shook his head. ‘I had half a dozen men working for me. It could have been any one of them. And my radio operator was a tough man. If anyone could survive he could. I barely made it out alive.’

  ‘Did you know a woman called Suzanne Colbert?’ said Mitchell, casting his hope and fears into Thompson’s void. Had the man come across his wife?

  The cigarette had quickly become a stub from Thompson’s nervous smoking. He got what he could from it and then ground it underfoot. He shook his head. ‘There were a lot of people operating in Paris. Different groups, different political persuasions. Mix that in with the criminal elements and you couldn’t tell who was betraying whom.’ He seemed less stressed than when Mitchell had walked into his workshop. No gun had been levelled at him. No threat made. ‘What do I call you?’

  ‘Pascal.’

  Thompson nodded. He knew that there would be a cover name. ‘You go to Paris, you put your head in the lion’s jaws. You won’t find the old man now.’

  ‘Let me decide that.’

  Thompson sighed. ‘What is it you want from me?’

  ‘If Alfred Korte is still alive then I want to find him and get him to England. You can help me finish the job you started.’

  ‘You want me to go back to Paris?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Thompson shook his head.

  ‘Listen to me,’ said Mitchell evenly. ‘You come with me into the city and help me find him. You will convince him that I am there to get him to England. Just like you were going to do. Do that and I will tell London that you are dead. They will have no further interest in you and you can stay here with your adopted family for the rest of your life. Peter Thompson will cease to exist. That’s the deal.’

  ‘And if I don’t agree?’

  ‘Then I will have no choice but to tell them where you are.’ Mitchell watched the man’s agony. ‘Take the deal, Peter. Have the life you want rather than lose it.’

  *

  Mitchell sat around a small scrubbed wooden kitchen table. Five soup plates were laid out. In the centre of the table a loaf of bread that looked as hard as a brick had two slices already cut from it. A square of salted lard rested on a plate waiting to be smeared on to the slices. The soup pan steamed on the wood-burning stove. Opposite Mitchell, a small child that he guessed to be about four years old sat patiently waiting for her evening meal. She gazed at Mitchell with a look that signalled fear at the effect this stranger at her table might have on her family, and resignation too. Her dark hair was tucked behind her ears but unusually, he thought, her eyes were blue. To Mitchell’s left, a boy perhaps two years older than his sister rested his chin on the edge of the table and made small popping noises with his lips. Mitchell sat upright on the stiff-backed chair, forearms resting on the table, waiting patiently for the raised voices in another room to subside.

  Minutes went by until the tearful argument quietened. And then Peter Thompson came into the kitchen, touched the boy’s hair and bent and kissed the top of the girl’s head. He pulled out a chair and sat, reached for the bread and spread a thin film of lard across each slice. It was obvious that food was scarce. Thompson gave each child a slice of bread and instructed them to wait for their mother before beginning to eat. Mitchell’s stomach rumbled but he declined the offer of a slice.

  ‘I’m not that hungry,’ said Mitchell. ‘Give it to the children.’

  Thompson nodded, understanding. ‘Thank you.’

  Madame Ferrand entered the kitchen, her eyes red-rimmed. She stuffed a crumpled handkerchief into her apron pocket and deflected her distress by ladling out the water-thin soup with traces of old vegetables. Once seated she clasped her hands in front of her face, followed by Thompson and the children. Mitchell followed suit as Madame Ferrand whispered grace and urged the good Lord to keep them all safe and to send his angels to protect the man she loved and who cared for her and her children.

  She glanced at the guest at her table and Mitchell saw in her eyes an entreaty not to take Peter Thompson from her.

  They ate in silence.

  30

  SS-Sturmbannführer Ahren Brünner had run a search pattern across the area north of Saint-Just. The slaughter of its inhabitants was a reprisal others would not forget. Putting the fear of God into these French partisans was essential. Over the days he had driven through half a dozen remote hamlets and villages and there had been no sign of strangers being given shelter. His arrival soon brought the fearful inhabitants out on to the street and their protestations of innocence were quickly confirmed. If the maquisards had sought refuge in any of these places he would have found them.

  Brünner could not know as he led his column of vehicles along the forest track towards Furchette that Chaval and the men were crouched in the trees hidden behind their camouflaged car. Yet again Chaval had had to restrain Maillé from ambushing the SS as they passed, and the roar of the German vehicles and the stench of their exhaust lingered in the maquisards’ ears and nostrils even when they were out of sight.

  Chaval ordered his men to be ready to move quickly if they heard gunfire in the village. He dreaded another massacre if the Englishman were discovered. What to do then? Assist the villagers, or escape should the shooting start? It was too late to warn Pascal, and they were too few to challenge the ferocious SS. They would wait and pray that somehow the man who led them could escape.

  *

  Mitchell slept beneath the work counter in Thompson’s garage workshop. His plan was to strike out for the forest once the
nervous Thompson had spent the night comforting his wife and children. He was awake when the deserter brought him coffee and a piece of stale bread accompanied by a wrinkled apple from their winter storage.

  ‘We’re going to need another car. There are too many of us. What about that one?’ said Mitchell, dipping the hard bread into the hot coffee.

  Thompson nodded. ‘It will get us there if we don’t overload it. The suspension is close to collapse.’

  Mitchell kicked the tyres. ‘It’ll be you and me and one other. We need an extra armed man in the back in case we run into a patrol.’

  Thompson raised his own cup of coffee to his lips, but it took both hands to steady it.

  ‘Peter, it is impossible for us to avoid contact with the Germans or French police. You have to brace yourself for that fact. You’ve told your wife you’re going?

  Thompson nodded again.

  ‘She won’t stop you?’

  ‘She knows I have to do this. It’s what’s right. I should never have run. I’ll hold it together for as long as I have to.’

  Mitchell placed a hand on Thompson’s arm. ‘Peter, it’ll be all right. A few days and you’ll be home and everything else will be forgotten,’ he said quietly. Before another word was spoken the sound of approaching vehicles made them move quickly to the workshop’s open doors. The unmistakable sight of an SS Hunter Group came quickly into view.

  Mitchell turned back and tugged free the .45, lifted the top tray from a toolbox and dropped in the pistol. He stripped off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. Thompson was rooted to the spot as the SS vehicles slowed and stopped in the village street. Mitchell lifted the bonnet on one of the cars and rubbed oil and grease on to his hands and arms with a dab on his face for good luck. ‘Peter, I’m an itinerant mechanic looking for work. I got here yesterday. You needed help with these cars and the old tractor.’