They stripped off their outer clothes and lay down on the bare boards, wrapped in the blankets that Galliou’s sister had charitably provided. The crossing, spent below decks, had been extremely unpleasant. Both Galliou and Hunter had been seasick, the Englishman violently so, and he had been on the verge of the same himself. The night air had revived him, but the drenching had produced its own discomfort. The attic was freezing, the boards hard, the blankets thin and the rafters above were, apparently, home to a large colony of bats. Sleep was impossible for him, though soon he could hear Galliou snoring. Hunter, who spoke faultless French, talked for a while before he, too, fell asleep. Duval lay cold, stiff and aching until the grey light of dawn began to filter through the shutter slats.
The sister brought up hot coffee, bread and a little cheese. She was a good woman – anxious to help but more than a little afraid. Duval could see that she wanted them to be gone.
The radio transmitter, concealed in a false compartment at the bottom of his suitcase, seemed undamaged by the wetting. He replaced it carefully after he had examined it and covered the compartment lid again with the clothing, the French cigarettes and the sketch pad and chalks that he had brought with him. As arranged, they left the cottage one at a time – a gap of an hour between departures. Each was travelling in a different direction: Galliou across to the Finistère region, Hunter to Normandy, himself to Paris. It was unlikely that they would meet again.
He walked to the nearest railway station and caught the next train going in the direction of Paris. There were plenty of German troops around but none paid him, or his suitcase, much attention. There were some advantages, he thought wryly, in being his age. Vigorous young men of military years were dismissive of anyone so old. They looked through you, rather than at you. You held no interest and posed no threat – or so they thought.
In the train compartment which he shared with two Wehrmacht soldiers, he passed the journey chewing on a garlic clove given to him by Galliou’s sister, and watched them edge away.
He changed onto another train going direct to the capital and slept for the rest of the journey. At Paris he booked into a small hotel in Montmartre. The Germans, he knew, would expect an artist to stay there, and as it happened it suited him. He planned to keep well away from both Simone and Gerard Klein – Simone because of her SS lover and Gerard because he had no wish to implicate him in any way. He spent a month in the city, meeting with his contacts there, as well as recruiting new ones – adding to the growing spider’s web of agents. Any important information he transmitted in code to London from his hotel room. Occasionally, for verisimilitude, he made sketches of Montmartre scenes, and curious German soldiers would come and peer over his shoulder and nod and make approving noises.
He spent several agreeable evenings at Le Petit Coin where Michel the patron regaled him with Occupation anecdotes. There was, it seemed, no shortage of collaborators among the Parisian rich and famous – actors and actresses, singers, entertainers, writers, artists, film-makers and high society who had found it more convenient and to their advantage to be friendly with the Germans. Duval listened grimly to the long list and to the large number of women of Michel’s acquaintance who were known to be collabos horizontals – to which he could have added the name of his own wife. And the city was awash with indicateurs, informants who eagerly denounced their fellow men, and with corbeaux, the crow-like writers of poison-pen letters. Jews were always the favourite target. Mademoiselle Citron was far from alone in her desire for personal revenge.
‘But, thank God,’ Michel assured him, ‘there are still plenty of us in Paris who aren’t like this. There’s not much we can do, but at least we can ignore the Germans. We don’t speak to them, we don’t help them, we won’t tell them the way, we won’t even give them a light for their cigarettes. Silence is our only weapon but it’s a good one.’
On one of his visits, he saw the truth of this when two young Wehrmacht officers happened to enter the café in search of a meal and everybody immediately stopped talking and eating. In the total silence and stillness that followed, the two of them stood awkwardly by the door as the silence lengthened. No-one looked at them, no-one moved, no-one made a sound. After a while, the Germans turned and left.
Before he left Paris, he telephoned Simone. She sounded exasperated.
‘Where are you now, Louis? You never seem to be at the studio. I can never contact you there.’
‘I move around. I visited Aunt Pauline in Rennes not so long ago.’
‘That old battleaxe! Whatever for?’
He said mildly, ‘For old times’ sake. She seemed pleased to see me.’
‘Well, she always liked you. She hated me.’
He didn’t bother to deny it. ‘Is the bank paying the allowance on time?’
‘They were five days late last month. That’s why I was trying to get hold of you.’
‘I’ll have another word with them. How are things otherwise?’
‘As you’d expect. Not easy.’
‘Trouble with the Germans?’
‘Not exactly. I told you, everything is in short supply.’
‘But you’re managing?’ he said drily.
‘Yes, I’m managing. I look after myself. I have to.’
‘Of course you do, Simone.’
The next day he went by train to Orléans, the suitcase stowed in the luggage rack above his head. There was an inspection of tickets and papers by German railway police but all his were in perfect order. The suitcase was left unsearched.
At Orléans he stayed in another small and insignificant hotel and set about spinning the spider’s web still larger. One of the contacts in Paris had given him a useful name. He met the man in a side-street café and they talked at a table in the corner. At first, the man was far from willing.
‘You are asking me to work for the English?’
‘No, for France.’
‘I must make something very plain to you, monsieur. I am a royalist. I don’t recognize the Republic of France. You may work for who you wish, but I shall be working for the rightful King of France who will one day be restored to his throne.’
What did the cause matter, Duval thought, so long as the aim was the same?
He spent another week in Orléans before continuing south-west to Tours where he called on his sister. It was more than six years since he had seen Albertine and he knew very well that any pleasure she might have felt at their meeting would be spoiled for her by worrying how her husband, Henri, would react. As soon as he had embraced her, he set her mind at rest.
‘I’m calling by, that’s all. Just to see how you are.’
He left the suitcase in the hall and she showed him formally into the pin-neat parlour where they sat on uncomfortable chairs and made polite conversation – more like strangers than brother and sister. He asked after her two children, though their names escaped him. Marcel, she told him, was now married with a baby and had followed in Henri’s respectable footsteps, working at the town hall. Claudette was not yet married and had a job as a pharmacist. He remembered his nephew as a carbon copy of his father, and his niece as gawky and plain. His sister looked much older than when he had last seen her. He wondered if her dowdy, depressed look was a consequence of spending more than twenty-five years in company with the purse-lipped, pince-nez-wearing Henri, or if it was simply in her nature. They were seven years apart in age – she the younger – and so far as he could recall there had never been a single thing in common. She had no more understanding of his work or his life than he had of hers.
The talk, inevitably, turned to the Occupation, and to the Vichy government.
‘Henri says that it’s the duty of us all to do as Marshal Pétain tells us – to accept the German victory and to continue to work as usual. Getting back to normal is patriotic. France should not resist. It’s not in her interest.’
‘I see. And what do you think, my dear Albertine?’
She looked at him, baffled. ‘Me? I agre
e with Henri, of course.’
‘Does Marcel also agree with his father?’
‘Certainly. Claudette doesn’t, though. She believes quite differently. She and her father have many arguments. It’s just as well that she no longer lives here with us.’
His niece came by after work and he studied her with renewed interest. She was indeed plain, just as he remembered, but he saw now that there was a certain air about her – a fearless look. Whereas others might keep their eyes lowered to the ground to avoid encountering those of the occupiers, she, he imagined, would hold her head up to engage them directly. And she was a qualified pharmacist – clearly intelligent.
He left before his brother-in-law returned, sparing his sister the embarrassment of a confrontation. His niece left at the same time and they walked down the cobbled street together.
He said, ‘It’s been a long time since we last met.’
She smiled slightly. ‘My father would like it to be for ever. According to him, you live a life of total debauchery and decadence.’
‘If only it were so.’
‘He believes you spend your time painting naked women and seducing them.’
‘Alas, not all my time.’ They passed a café and she accepted his offer of a drink. She also accepted a cigarette. Henri, he felt sure, would have approved of neither. He lit the Gauloise for her. ‘Your mother tells me that you don’t always agree with your father’s views – for example, on Marshal Pétain’s exhortations to all patriotic Frenchmen to work hard for the Germans.’
She drew on the cigarette, flapping the smoke aside irritably. ‘That old man talks shit. So does my father. Plenty of people in Tours think just the opposite.’
‘Really?’ he said. ‘How interesting. Tell me more.’
Powell caught sight of Barbara in the distance, putting up her umbrella against the rain as she emerged from the bank in Dartmouth. He crossed the road and made sure that their paths met. A pointless exercise, but he couldn’t help himself. She looked up at him from under the umbrella, startled but not, he thought, too dismayed to see him, and when he suggested some tea in the Castle hotel close by she seemed perfectly willing. Considering the way the wind was blowing and the rain lashing the quayside, he thought it wasn’t such a bad idea himself. Inside it was at least dry, and a good deal warmer than out. He took off his cap and shed his wet greatcoat. There was even a log fire burning and a table close beside it. He ordered tea and scones from the waitress.
She took off her gloves, looking round. ‘Do you know, I’ve never been in here.’
‘My parents used to stay when they came down to visit me at the College.’
‘Then it must hold a lot of memories for you.’
‘Yes, it does.’ He thought fondly of his mother, elegantly dressed in the ankle-length gowns of those pre-Great War days, a spectacular hat and, always, her many-stranded choker of pearls, after the fashion of the Princess of Wales. And he thought of his father, straight-backed and handsome – the admiral who had expected an equally high rank from his son and concealed his disappointment well. He had been very lucky with his parents.
‘How are the kittens?’ It was a safe subject.
She smiled. ‘I’ve found homes for all except the ginger one. He’s staying until Esme can take him home with her one day.’
‘I’m sure she’s pleased about that.’
‘Yes, she is. And she’s so much easier now. I’ll be very sorry to lose her when the time comes.’
He thought, watching her, what a marvellous mother she’d make and how much he’d like to be the father.
The tea and scones arrived, with jam too. She poured out his tea for him, which inevitably led to more daydreaming on his part. He knew that she must be wondering if he had heard any news of Louis Duval, though, equally, he knew that she would never ask him. Not that he could have told her much. London had received certain messages and Duval was known to be in Tours. He hoped, for his sake, that the weather was better over there.
By the time he left Tours, Duval had set up a small but dedicated resistance cell in the area with Claudette in charge. It was a nice irony, he thought, considering her father’s views. She thought so too.
He went on to Nantes where an old friend of his – also an artist, had lived for years. Lucien and his wife, Denise, gave him a warm welcome, a good supper, a great deal of wine and offered a bed for the night. He had no intention of trying to recruit Lucien – he was a good man but much too fond of the bottle to be reliable. However, before the level of the nightcap brandy had sunk too low, he steered the conversation away from trivial gossip to the subject of U-boats.
Lucien raised his eyebrows. ‘U-boats? What of them?’
‘They say the Germans are busily building bunkers for them all along this coast.’
‘We heard something of the kind, or rather Denise did. She was queuing at the butcher’s and the woman in front of her was going on about it.’
‘What did she say?’
Lucien shrugged. ‘I didn’t listen properly. You’ll have to ask her in the morning. She’ll be asleep by now, snoring away.’
He had Denise to himself at breakfast since Lucien was doing his share of the snoring. Yes, she told him, the woman in front of her in the butcher’s queue last week had told her that her husband, a builder, had been made to work for the Germans. He was very upset about it, and so was she, but what could one do? If you refused, they shot you. He had been put to work on some concrete bunkers to house German submarines over at St Nazaire. A great big construction with room for a fleet of U-boats. How many? She hadn’t asked – it was depressing to talk about such things. Night and day they were being made to work. What else had the woman said? Just that. It wasn’t so much the U-boats the woman had cared about, it was the idea of her husband having to work like a dog for the filthy Boche and for a pittance. No, she had no idea of the woman’s name. She had never set eyes on her before. She was just another one in a very long queue – two hours or more for a minuscule piece of tough beef.
In April Duval was back in Lorient. Ernest Boitard, his wife informed him on the telephone, had been sent elsewhere to work and she refused to say where that was. It might, or might not have been true, but the certain thing was that Boitard had reached the end of his tether and would do no more. Duval contacted Léon and arranged to meet at the same café as before. He arrived earlier than the appointed time and settled himself at the same table with a newspaper to read and a Cinzano to drink. The two old men with their blackened pipes were at their table again, apparently engrossed in their game of dominoes. Nobody seemed to take any notice of him, but he knew his presence was being observed.
Léon was ten minutes late. He went straight to the bar and brought his glass of calvados over to the table; under his arm he carried a newspaper. He was wearing an old belted raincoat and with his little moustache and slick dark hair the resemblance to Hitler was remarkable. The plumber sat down on the opposite side of the table, placing the newspaper beside him.
‘You have a light, please, monsieur?’
‘Certainly.’ He leaned forward to oblige.
‘Thank you. Well, I have something of great interest for you.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Something of vital importance.’
‘And what is that?’
Léon lowered his voice. ‘Drawings.’
‘Drawings? Of what?’
‘Of the Keroman U-boat pens. Specifications. Drawings for their construction. Measurements. Distances. All details.’
He didn’t believe him. ‘And how did you come by these drawings?’
‘I stole them.’
He said coolly, ‘Really? Didn’t the Germans notice?’
‘No. I only took them overnight. I had them traced and took them back the next morning.’ Léon swigged down some calvados. ‘You see, I happened to be working near this office and I knew the man in it was important – a construction engineer, or some such, with the Toldt Organizatio
n. Big office, big desk, and so on. Then one day he was ill – so ill that he had to stop his work suddenly and go away. I watched him leave, groaning and holding his stomach, and he forgot to lock the door. So, later, I took my bag of tools and went in there and pretended to work on the heating pipes. I told you, nobody takes any notice of a plumber. If necessary I could have made the pipes leak, so I wasn’t too worried.’
Duval still doubted that there was any truth in the story. ‘What then?’
‘From where I was pretending to work I saw the drawings lying on the desk – several of them, one on top of the other – and I could tell the sort of thing they were. I could read the words printed in big red letters on the top one: Sonder-zeichungen – Streng Geheim. Special Blueprint – Top Secret.’ Léon spread out his hands expressively – workworn, grimy hands with dirty nails. ‘At first, I didn’t know what to do. I went on tapping away at the pipes and thinking to myself that I must take this chance . . . somehow I must find the courage to do something. Somehow I had to.’ He looked at Duval proudly. ‘And in the end, I did.’
‘Did what exactly?’
‘I went away and fetched a length of piping. Then I took the drawings off the table – rolled them up very carefully and slid them inside the pipe. And I left the room and went back to my work nearby. When it was time to go, I walked out with them inside the pipe under my arm.’
‘Surely they searched it?’
Léon shook his head. ‘They were busy with somebody else much more important. A plumber is nobody, you see. And he is always carrying such things – tools, buckets, plungers, pipes. It looks natural for him.’
‘And you took these drawings home?’
‘No, I took them to the house of a friend. A draughtsman. He worked all night, tracing each one on thin paper. Then I rolled the drawings up again and returned them to the pipe and in the morning, when I went to work, I replaced them on the desk, exactly as they had been. The engineer was still away ill and no-one saw me. Nobody knows.’
Duval was still uncertain whether to believe him. He said slowly, ‘And where are these tracings now?’
Those in Peril Page 26