by David Gilman
Ginny had waited fifteen minutes. Then another five. She quickly left the café and turned the corner up the main thoroughfare. She was a brisk twenty-minute walk from the apartment and by the time she reached it she was clammy from her efforts and the fear that had made her hands sweat when the old waiter had warned her. A simple mistake but one that might have proved fatal in the long term. Every moment was fraught. But then she chastised herself. She had to get her fear under control. She pushed through the door into the building’s lobby and began the slow climb up to the top floor. There was no sound from any of the apartments. She thought she heard a muted radio in one but it went silent as her heels clattered past. Her anxiety peaked when she reached the penultimate floor. The door of the flat below Mitchell’s opened a crack. A shifty-looking man, gaunt cheeks, his black hair greased back, smoking a soggy-ended cigarette. His frayed shirt collar exposed a grubby neck pockmarked with blackheads. His eyes followed her as she ascended the stairs and then the door clicked shut.
When she had closed the door of the apartment she dug out one of the cigarettes salvaged from the packet confiscated by Mitchell. Her hands shook. She needed to calm down because the time was looming for her transmission to London. And the Morse key needed a steady hand.
32
By the time Mitchell and his men reached the outskirts of Paris the SS had rolled back into Peter Thompson’s village. Brünner checked the garage workshop, calling out for the two mechanics. He gestured for his sergeant to check the vehicle. The sergeant started it up and it gave a satisfactory rhythmic sound. Then he pressed the accelerator pedal a couple of times and the high revs made no difference to the engine pitch. The fault had been fixed.
Brünner turned towards Thompson’s house across the street. Madame Ferrand had heard the SS Hunter Group arrive and stood back from the lace curtains on her window, watching as the SS officer ordered his men to check the workshop and storerooms for the absent man she thought of as her husband. The repaired vehicle was driven out and put back in line with the others as the German strode towards her front door. She clasped her hands together and prayed desperately that she could do as she had been instructed. With an unconscious flick of her head, she raised her chin defiantly and answered the heavy knocking on her door.
‘Yes?’ she said to Brünner. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘‘Where are the two men who were in the garage? Your husband and the other one. Where are they?’
Madame Ferrand’s fear gave impetus to her pretence. ‘You think I know, major? If I did I would have the police on him, the bastard.’
‘What are you talking about, madame?’
The concocted story spilt from her aided by her genuine distress. ‘That man who was here, he was a mechanic all right, but he wasn’t looking for work, he was here to entice my husband to go with him to Lyon. They are old friends, drunks both of them. By now they’re probably halfway up the stairs of a brothel. If you find him, you can keep him. In fact, you can shoot the bastard. I’ve had enough. He won’t ever set foot in this house again no matter how many times he crawls back begging like he has done in the past. No, major, I don’t know where he is. You men, you are all bastards.’
Brünner turned to look at the gathered men and his grinning sergeant.
‘Well, major, she is right about the brothels. The French are the best,’ said the sergeant.
The men laughed and murmured their approval.
‘All right, if we find him we’ll tell him what you said.’ Brünner smiled. He turned back the waiting troops.
‘Wait,’ said Madame Ferrand. She pulled a folded piece of paper out of her apron pocket. ‘Who’s going to pay’?
Brünner gave her a quizzical look and took it from her hand.
‘How am I supposed to live if people don’t pay their bills?’ she said with as much courage as she could muster.
Brünner unfolded the paper and glanced at the invoice. She watched his expression; had anyone ever challenged the SS to pay for anything?
The major smiled and turned to his men. ‘She wants us to pay for the work.’ It caused a ripple of laughter among the battle-hardened SS troopers. Brünner looked back at the defiant and angry woman. He considered for a moment and then nodded. ‘Very well, you shall be paid.’ He took out his wallet from his tunic pocket and counted out the notes and then handed them to Madame Ferrand.
‘Thank you, major,’ she said.
Brünner carefully folded the invoice into his wallet and tucked it back into his tunic. ‘We are not undisciplined soldiers. And we have wives and loved ones of our own at home. We understand the difficulties of a woman left to fend for herself and her children. Good day, madame.’
She watched as the troops formed up and Waffen SS-Sturmbannführer Ahren Brünner led his column out of the village.
She closed the door and pressed her back against it. The relief was enormous and despite the fear she had felt and the void left by Thompson’s departure, there was the undeniable sense of having achieved a small victory over her enemy. What the Germans had failed to notice was that the repaired vehicle’s WH designated number plates had been stolen and were now attached to the car that her husband was driving to Paris.
*
The car that Mitchell had taken from Thompson’s garage finally gave up the ghost close to where the rest of the men were to stay hidden. The German plates were swapped on to the Peugeot. Peter Thompson was gaunt with tension as Mitchell directed him to drive through the back streets of Paris. Swastika banners loomed large, pronouncing the unbeatable strength of those who occupied the city. Thompson glanced nervously at him. ‘Do you know where you are?’
‘Yes,’ said Mitchell. The familiarity of the city embraced him. It was everything he remembered and memory stirred his emotions. Behind the urgency of his mission, the desperate hope that his daughter might still be alive was what gave him the courage to risk everything. He had tortured himself by directing Thompson to drive down the Rue de la Santé, past the imposing walls of La Santé prison. If London’s intelligence was correct then somewhere in that bleak labyrinth was his daughter. When they had driven slowly past the gates Mitchell suppressed the despair that closed around his chest and directed Thompson across the Seine.
‘Christ,’ Thompson whispered, ‘this is crazy. You’re going to get us caught.’
‘Calm down. Pull over there.’ Mitchell pointed towards a side street.
Thompson guided the car to where Mitchell had indicated. The side street gave them a clear view towards the colonnaded building which served as the German Army HQ. Parked vehicles belonging to the Germans lined the Rue de Rivoli outside the building.
‘All right, ease the car forward and find a place to park.’
Thompson swallowed hard. His hands gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles whitened.
‘Listen to me. We need to hide the car in plain sight. Understood? And this car is no different than many the Germans have commandeered.’
Thompson nodded nervously. Mitchell was clearly in no mood to be contradicted. He eased the car forward and as they reached the intersection he and Mitchell scanned the street. A mix of German and French marques belonging to the German HQ lined the street. ‘There,’ said Thompson, spotting an open space. He swung the car and parked it. No sooner had he switched off the ignition than he reached for the door, desperate to be far away from the coming and going of German soldiers.
Mitchell grabbed his arm, watching the street, scanning for any immediate threat. ‘Wait.’ Four soldiers had stepped out of the entrance and were walking towards them. Two uniformed German women accompanied them. The group seemed relaxed. The women were laughing, forage caps pinned into brushed-back hair, crisp white blouses beneath grey tunics. Young soldiers flung together in the most desired posting – far from home yet also far from the fighting. Eager to enjoy the pleasures of Paris and each other. They walked past the car without a second look, their voices light with the freedom of the end of a work
ing day.
Thompson controlled his rapid breathing. Mitchell nodded and swung open the door. The two men walked away. It took them near enough an hour to walk north, criss-crossing the streets, avoiding any impromptu identity-card checks the Germans conducted on street corners. The light was fading and Mitchell wanted to be in the apartment before curfew. He hoped that Ginny had arrived safely and that no suspicion had been raised by her presence in his old flat. If she had done as he had instructed then she should be in the clear but their late arrival in the city meant going to the building instead of making the rendezvous at the café as planned. It was also more dangerous. If things had gone awry then the Gestapo might be waiting for them.
*
Mitchell led the way upstairs, the memory of when he had last been in the building tinged with self-recrimination. His wife and daughter had been separated from him as they tried to make their escape from Paris. This apartment was a long way from where they had lived and worked and wasn’t on the German radar. He had abandoned the city and made for the coast where a fishing boat had been arranged to take them to England. That was where Suzanne and Danielle would have headed, he had told himself. But when he reached the boat there had been no sign of them. The tide was on the turn and the information he had gathered since the city had been occupied needed to be recounted to someone in authority in London. And that had made him step aboard and leave France, his wife and his daughter behind.
He knocked quietly on the door.
A floorboard creaked. Mitchell pressed his face close to the door and listened. A part of him sensed the presence of someone on the other side. If it was Ginny then she would not be expecting anyone.
‘Thérèse,’ he said softly. ‘Pascal.’
The door was unlocked and the anxious face of the young Englishwoman peered through the crack as it opened. Seeing them, she opened the door wider and ushered the two men inside. Mitchell saw that she held a small automatic by her side. She quickly closed and locked the door. ‘You scared me,’ she said, brushing a wisp of hair from her face, looking from Mitchell to Thompson. ‘Who’s this?’
‘I’m Charles Ferrand,’ he said in English. ‘ I’m here to help Pascal.’ He extended his hand; Ginny shook it.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know we had another Englishman in the city.’
‘It wasn’t planned,’ said Mitchell.
‘I see. Well then, I’ve a small pot of soup on the go. I got my bread ration today. We’ll have to make do with that. The electricity is on and off but I found candles for when it’s dark. There’s no heating.’ She ushered Mitchell into his own apartment. The years the flat had been unoccupied had given rise to a permanent smell of damp. The air was chill and Ginny had layered herself with clothing for warmth. The steam from the pot on the electric cooking ring clung in droplets to the kitchen wall.
Mitchell looked around: nothing had changed. A curtain separated the sleeping area where he saw Ginny’s clothing spread out on the bed and side chair. She would never be able to move in a hurry if the alarm was raised. But now was not the time to instruct her to keep out only essential clothing. The old overstuffed sofa was still good enough to sleep on; he would claim that for himself and let Thompson sleep on the floor. He went to the window and looked up and down the street. It would not be long before curfew and the city was already falling silent. Soon there would only be the sound of German hobnailed boots as the five-man units patrolled the streets. He had lived in the threatening silence before and knew what fears crept into the imagination when a rifle shot pierced the stillness, or a high-powered car roared through the streets as the Gestapo dragged away a suspect. It was not hard to picture his own wife and daughter falling victim to the night.
‘Any problems?’
‘No. No, not really,’ she said, laying another two places at the small table. ‘Man downstairs doesn’t look very enticing. Comes across as a rat sniffing the air for bait.’
Mitchell couldn’t suppress a smile. Her understatement couldn’t be more damning.
‘The neighbourhood’s gone downhill since I was last here, then,’ he said. ‘Ignore him. I don’t know who he is, but the less we have to do with these people the better. No one wants to get involved in anything. If he ever comes up here nosing around tell me and I’ll pay him a visit. Sometimes a quiet threat is all you need. Once he knows that your “uncle” might be visiting then his curiosity might be satisfied.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, placing the meagre rations on the table. ‘Where are the others?’
‘I’ve left them a few miles away on the edge of the city. They’re in an abandoned farmhouse. I put Chaval in charge. If we need them we can reach them in under an hour. We have a car.’
‘Here?’
‘We parked it opposite Hôtel Meurice,’ said Thompson.
She looked at Mitchell in disbelief. She had been sufficiently briefed in London to know where the German Army headquarters was located.
‘Anywhere else would have raised suspicion,’ said Mitchell. ‘If it’s picked up then so be it. We’ll be careful. I doubt we’ll use it again unless we need to be somewhere in a hurry. What we need to do now is find a man called Alfred Korte. And that’s where our friend here comes in.’
Ginny Lindhurst looked at the tall figure hunching his shoulders as he brought the spoon to his lips. There was a noticeable tremor to his hand, spilling the soup. She glanced at Mitchell, who gave a barely perceptible shake of his head, unnoticed by Thompson who was concentrating solely on getting the food to his mouth.
In that moment she realized that she was not the only one feeling apprehensive about being in the city, where informers could be at your shoulder as you walked down the street or pressed close in the Métro. Any slip could lead to betrayal. She decided she would not mention the incident at the café.
33
Mitchell felt a tangible excitement at being back in Paris. The light still blessed and shaded the beautiful buildings but the city was almost silent. So few cars and buses were on the street that it was mostly the muted shuffle of pedestrians’ feet or the tinkle of bicycle bells that he heard as Parisians went about their business. Birdsong heralded the spring weather as they nested. How long had it taken them to return? he wondered. When the Germans had rolled into the city in June 1940, their columns of motorized troops came down from Saint-Denis and Montrouge. Leather-coated motorcyclists and sidecars arrived first, followed by their tanks. The French had burnt their oil and gas supplies as the jackbooted Nazis approached. The suffocating black smoke had smothered the city, poisoning all the birds. But now, like him, they were back and their trilling helped lift his spirits.
He had gone to where Thompson said he had hidden Alfred Korte, but what had once been a bookshop was now boarded up. Had the Germans shut it down? His heart raced. If they had then odds were the German scientist had been taken. He asked one of the street sellers what had happened. No one knew. One day there was the usual rack of books outside, the tattered old canopy pulled down against the sun – not that there had been much of that – to protect the books in the window from fading. And then? Gone. Boarded up just like it was now. One of the women heard the conversation. No, no, he was told, the old lady was sick of the Germans visiting her. She didn’t want their custom so she had closed up shop. She was admired for putting her principles above money. Mitchell left the street sellers debating among themselves whether such a moral stance made sense in a time of occupation when there was no food or fuel and what there was had to be bought on the black market. Money was money.
He walked briskly towards the Métro station. The Métro was a favourite place for the German and French authorities to conduct spot checks but it was a risk he had to take: Mitchell did not know how many of his old friends still survived or were still living in the city; the surest way to find out was to ask his contact at the American Hospital, who had known Mitchell and his wife when they lived in Paris, and the hospital was in the western suburbs of the city
at Neuilly-sur-Seine.
The previous evening, after the evening meal had been cleared away, the three of them had settled down for the night. Blankets and pillows served Thompson on the floor as Mitchell made up a bed on the sofa. Ginny’s transmission was due the next day and Mitchell instructed her to keep it brief, to inform them Pascal was in place and that he had met up with an old friend from university days. That would tell London Thompson had been found. Then he had changed into clothes from a suitcase that he had left in the apartment years ago and set off, insisting that Thompson and Ginny stay inside until he returned.
Mitchell joined the crush of travellers at the Métro and kept his eyes lowered as the crowd shuffled on to the platform past the searching gaze of a gendarme making a random examination of identity cards. He was jostled as people tried to edge towards the platform’s edge to give themselves a chance to board the next train. At one end of the platform a different group of people waited as patiently as the other tired-looking citizens, but they wore the yellow star that meant they were obliged to travel in the rear coach. Mitchell hunched his shoulders, making himself smaller, wishing to be less obvious than he felt. The Wehrmacht officers stood at the far end of the platform, relaxed, smoking, some reading a newspaper as they waited for their separate carriage. Everyone was boxed and confined according to who they were. Sour breath from garlic, cheap wine and tobacco wafted over Mitchell as he listened to the grumbling that went on around him. The Occupation was a strange mixture: the city was suppressed by German soldiers, yet they showed every courtesy to those they controlled. The soldiers were well behaved: if they were not they were court-martialled. The German troops did not force Parisians to make way for them on the pavements; they gave up their seats on public transport for the elderly, though many Parisians declined the offer, their refusal a small act of defiance. The soldiers showed kindness towards children. Yet they ate well, and to be so well fed indicated their power. These same courteous men used rifle butts to beat unarmed civilians in the round-ups, shot anyone breaking curfew and executed the innocent in reprisals.