by Nigel Jones
Fascinated he watched, surprised by her compliance. There was an agonising shooting pain as her knee crushed his testicles. As he doubled up in agony Yvette sunk her teeth into his neck, directly into his jugular vein and her jaw locked. Like a rabid dog she shook his neck, her teeth slowly penetrating his skin.
He fought wildly, trying to free himself from the frenzied woman who was intent on literally ripping his throat out. The pain from his groin subsided as the blood began to flow from his neck. He wrestled her to the floor but could not free himself. He knew he was about to die and in a last ditch effort to free himself he punched her hard in the stomach.
The pain was excruciating and as a reflex action Yvette released his neck.
Another blow followed, then another. She fell, doubled up in agony as he hit her child. Now he was on his feet and kicking her. The kicks were striking every part of her body as he continued with his vicious attack. Slowly he realised that the maximum pain and hurt could be extracted by kicking her unborn, Jewish bastard, child.
He was laughing when the bullet blew the front of his skull apart and covered the inert Yvette in blood and brains. His dead body slumped and fell on top of her.
Jacques leapt forward and dragged him from Yvette.
He lifted her in his arms like a child and carried her sobbing from the cell and up the stairs to the reception area of the police station.
The other Gestapo officer lay dead on the floor along with three soldiers. Two policemen stood, their hands aloft, staring into the gun barrels that pinned them to the wall. Outside, over thirty men knelt, their guns raised, guarding the entrance and waiting for the S.S. troops to arrive at the scene of their raid.
Yvette’s attacker had been too engrossed in his sick fantasy to hear the gunfire in the street above.
Sophie waited for Jacques to reappear. He had leapt down the steps to the cells and she’d heard the single shot, the shot she prayed had brought an end to the Gestapo swine’s life.
She had been covering the steps in case it was the German who appeared. She did not know what to expect when Jacques appeared carrying Yvette in his arms. She was shocked to see her half-naked body, covered in blood, and the girl sobbing in his arms. She stepped towards them and pulled down Yvette’s skirt to cover the trickle of blood that issued from between her legs. She looked at Jacques to see the pained look on his handsome face as he just shook his head.
“Get her to the doctor, Jacques. I know you have a sympathiser who will help. We will make sure you get away safely. Now go!” Sophie almost pushed him towards the van as the first shot ricocheted off the wall next to them.
Jacques eased Yvette into the seat, and as he arranged her dress to cover her bare breasts he saw the cigarette burns. “It will be fine, darling. I’ll take you to Doctor Arnaux. You will be fine.”
Yvette did not speak; she just stared into the darkness she saw before her. Already she had stopped sobbing. Her baby was dead. Her hope, her future, her Perdy was dead. She knew it the way she knew that night followed day.
The doctor administered to her wounds and examined her thoroughly, paying particular attention to the baby. Then they took her to the secret room in the attic where many others in the Resistance had recuperated from injury, and where several had died. She lay on the bed and curled up into a ball, still not talking or responding to any questions the doctor asked. Jacques too was ignored, as if he was not there or invisible.
“Come, Jacques. Yvette must rest.” Dr. Arnaux led him down to his rooms again.
“How is she?” Jacques asked anxiously.
The doctor looked at the young man who he knew to be Yvette’s lover and the father of her child. “She is in deep shock. Physically she is not too bad, nothing broken, just the burns and bruising. But…” he hesitated, “the baby, your baby. I think the baby is dead.” He let it sink in. “I cannot hear a foetal heartbeat, and Yvette has severe interior bleeding. She has been badly beaten.”
Jacques was now in shock too. His mind raced. How would she deal with this? His brittle hellcat might disintegrate. He was quiet, wrapped in thought.
Then the doctor answered a question Jacques had been finding it hard to ask. In fact he had already jumped to a conclusion about the answer having seen her half-naked and the German with his trousers round his ankles. “I don’t think she was raped. There is no bruising there or any sign of sexual activity.”
It was a small blessing, but one he found comforting beyond all reason. “Good. She could not have lived with that.” How she would live with the rest of it, he did not know.
An hour later Pierre arrived at the doctor’s. “How is she?” He asked.
The doctor answered, “Comfortable, she will survive.”
Jacques inwardly questioned his prophetic words, but said nothing. Instead he asked Pierre if everyone had survived the fight with the S.S. Pierre’s moustache twitched. “Come on, Pierre. How bad?” The moustache warned him that it had not gone well.
Pierre paused. “One dead, Jean. And they have…”
“Come on, tell me.”
“They have Sophie.”
“Bloody hell, no. Not Sophie as well.” His anguished tone quickly gave way to anger. “The bastards, is she alive?”
“Yes, she was shot in the shoulder, but it took her down whilst she was covering our escape. We tried to get to her but their fire power was too great.” Pierre looked thoroughly downcast.
“I know you did, Pierre. Come on, we’ll get her back. Like we did, Yvette.”
“No, Jacques. They took her straight to the Gestapo headquarters. This time Sophie belongs to them.”
Jacques was acutely aware of what that meant, almost certain death after agonising torture is what Sophie, Yvette’s best friend, had in store. It would be the final straw for Yvette, if there were any straws left to break. Jacques had never felt so helpless in his life.
Pierre saw the look on his face and snapped him out of his despond. “She will not talk, no matter what they do to her. The girls never talk, only the men.”
Jacques found himself smiling. How true, every woman he’d met in the Resistance had been brave beyond belief, and had pain thresholds he could not imagine. Still, his heart went out to Sophie and he prayed that her certain death would be quick.
Once again Pierre snapped him back to the present. “Yvette is not safe here. They will be looking for her, after the show of force we put up to get her back, they know she is important.”
The doctor interjected, “She can’t be moved yet. Probably within the next forty-eight hours her body will abort her dead baby.”
Pierre looked at Jacques for confirmation of what he had just heard. Jacques nodded at him. “Merde. The bastards.” But Pierre was soon in control again. “After that. She cannot return to the farmhouse, it is compromised. They will start a massive manhunt to find her.”
“England, I’ll take her back to England. She will be safe there, and it will give her time to heal.”
“I don’t think she will want to go,” said Pierre.
“I don’t know. She will not speak. She is in a deep shock,” said Jacques.
“It is a good idea. In her present state she will be no use to the Resistance. In England, her mind can heal as well as her body.” It was the doctor. “Though she must remain here for now. What she is about to experience will not be good.”
Pierre went to fetch Alain and Albert. The four of them would pay with their lives rather than have them take Yvette again. They waited at the doctor’s home for the Gestapo to come and for Yvette’s baby to leave.
Thirty-six hours later she went into labour to abort her child. Jacques had expected screams. Yvette gave birth to Perdy, the little girl who never drew breath, in perfect silence without shedding a single tear.
Four grown men shamelessly shed all their tears on her behalf.
Three days later Yvette and Jacques boarded the Lysander for England. Vera Atkins met them; she put her arm around Yvette and smiled
at Jacques. “Come, my dear. We have a nice room for you.”
Jacques stayed with her for twenty-four hours. She never spoke to him or anyone else. She didn’t cry or even look perplexed. She was dead inside.
There was no question of Jacques not returning to Normandy. There was too much to do, the invasion was drawing near and he was desperately needed. But he needed something too. He needed his own healing process to begin. He needed Honeysuckle.
He had twelve hours before Daniel flew him back to France, so he borrowed his motorcycle and rode it to the Isle of Wight.
He told Yvette he was going back to France and kissed her on the forehead. As he turned to leave she spoke the first words he had heard for nearly a week, “I’m sorry, Jacques.” A tear appeared in her eye.
It was too much for Jacques, who turned back and hugged her and cried into her shoulder. Her arms involuntarily wrapped around him as he implored her not to feel guilty, but she didn’t say anything more and no more tears appeared.
Jacques tickled Buster behind his ear. “That’s about as bad as it gets, Buster.”
Buster was glad the man had spoken. There had been no smiles and no one had passed by with treats. His muzzle nudged the plastic bag containing the sandwiches. ‘I had better remind him,’ he thought.
The man laughed. “Sorry, old man. You must be starving. Ham today, your favourite.”
ELEVEN
It was busy on the Warren. ‘Probably a ramblers day,’ thought Buster. Several new dogs about, he wasn’t very happy. He preferred the spring and autumn, just his usual friends to sniff without all the newcomers. The man preferred it too, less interruptions in his remembering. Though last time he was so deep in thought no one would have snapped him out of it. Hopefully today would be better and he wouldn’t have to wait so long for lunch!
Jacques looked at the rock he used to sit on with Honeysuckle when they were children. It was just a few feet away from the bench he now occupied with Buster. It seemed much bigger all those years ago. The indentation that made a natural seat for them had gathered soil over the years, and where a sprig of white heather had seeded itself. The rock had stood at the side of the path, but the years had seen the path move and it was now almost completely surrounded by gorse.
They had parked the motorcycle at the bottom of the hill and walked to their rock. He had telephoned the exchange in Yarmouth and Katherine, the lady who worked the exchange, had walked the short distance to Honeysuckle’s house to tell her that Jacques would be there in three hours time. Luckily she was at home, as Jacques had already set off for Lymington and the ferry.
She was waiting on the pier, waving to him as the boat approached. For the first time in days Jacques felt his spirits lift.
When he disembarked they hugged each other and without preamble he said, “Come on, jump on the back, I need to talk to you.”
Honeysuckle looked at him quizzically, but realised he was not going to expand on the instruction as he was already sitting astride the bike offering her his hand.
Luckily she had on a loose-fitting skirt, which she was able to hitch up and she was immediately behind him. Her arms wrapped around his waist and her head rested on his back as he started the engine and gunned the throttle. She held on tightly as he sped off a little too fast towards the Warren.
Slightly flustered, Honeysuckle eased herself from the pillion seat and calming her mop of curls, said, “What is this all about, Jacques?”
“At the top, on our rock. I’ll tell you there.” Without saying anything more, he took her hand and led her up the winding path to the place they had spent so much of their childhood together, their place and their rock.
Once they had arrived, a little out of breath, he sat her down. He did not sit himself, but looked down the valley to where the Messerschmitt had crashed and beyond, to Farringford. He was searching for the words, wondering what to say to her. He had left Yvette twelve hours before he needed to because he had an overwhelming need to be with, and talk to, Honeysuckle. Now he was there he felt guilty for leaving Yvette and he did not know what to say.
Honeysuckle could see the anguish on his face and the pain in his eyes. She waited for him to begin in his own time.
It seemed an eternity and all she wanted to do was take him in her arms and soothe away his obvious hurt, but she waited.
Eventually he turned back towards her and with tears in his eyes said, “The baby is dead. It was a girl. She was murdered by the Gestapo.”
The enormity of what he’d said took a while to sink in, and then she leapt to her feet and took him in her arms and said, “My poor, Jacques. My poor, poor, Jacques.”
It was her turn to become tongue-tied. What could she possibly say? She gave him time to continue.
“They took Yvette and assaulted her. Then they beat her badly and kicked her in the stomach until our child was dead.” He wanted to release the tears that had formed in his eyes, but like Yvette he found it hard.
Honeysuckle let go of him and held him at arm’s length. She saw him fighting back the tears. “You can cry, Jacques. It’s alright, you know.”
He managed a weak smile. “I have cried, and I will again. But now I am so angry, I find it hard to cry.”
“I understand. It must be terrible.” She kissed his cheek. “Come, sit with me. You need to talk about it. It will help.” As always she knew what to do and how to deal with him.
They sat next to each other on the rock where they’d had so many conversations. Children’s conversations, but they were adults now and needed to have an adult talk. She held his hand as they stared out towards the Needles, then squeezed his fingers in encouragement.
Jacques told her the entire story of how Yvette was taken and about the sadistic bastard who assaulted her. He told her about the rescue and how the Gestapo had captured one of their best friends called Sophie. Honeysuckle did not interrupt, but allowed him to relay the awful events in his own time and in his own way. However, she noticed he did not speak of the effect it had all had on the woman who was going to be the mother of his child. The woman, it had been taken for granted, that he would marry when the War was over.
When he finished by telling her that Yvette had apologised to him, she was on the verge of crying and had to wipe away a tear that rolled down her cheek. He did not see it; he was still staring, unseeing, at the English Channel towards France.
“How is Yvette? How do you think she will cope with it all?” she asked.
“That is the problem. She did not speak a single word until she made that apology, and she has not spoken since. She has not shed a single tear; she is bottling it all up inside. She believed that the baby, our baby, had given humanity and self-respect back to her. At the moment she is like a dormant volcano, she has been in denial and she has felt guilt. But when the anger comes, as it will, and the volcano erupts it could be catastrophic.” He was still staring ahead.
Her poor Jacques, what a tangled web he found himself in, a domestic nightmare in the middle of a world of intrigue and betrayal. Still a young man, he had witnessed a world and events therein that beggared belief. What could she say, or do, that could help him? All Honeysuckle knew was that talking would help. They had always talked when something was wrong, but it was a long way from losing a pet rabbit to losing your baby, and in such circumstances.
“You wanted the baby, didn’t you?” She was still holding his hand.
“Yes. Yes, I did.” He paused. “At first I didn’t. I felt trapped. I felt as if all the choices I should have in life had been taken away from me.” He turned to face her. “I thought I had lost you because of the baby. So I blamed the baby. But after I saw you last, I knew I could never lose you. Not the important part of you.” He had to continue, to explain. “Yvette changed too. She was always vibrant, sexy if you like, but the prospect of motherhood altered her. She became gentler, content; wholesome would be a good word to describe her. From being trapped, I saw a life and a relationship that could work.”
With the idea of the baby he became wistful again. “She was called Perdy, you know. I was actually looking forward to the idea of having Perdy.”
Honeysuckle saw his eyes moisten once more. With that, she finally cried herself. She cried for him.
Her crying is what Jacques had needed, now he had to care for her. “Don’t cry, Honeysuckle. I can’t bear to see you cry. Just talking to you has helped me. I will be fine, and I’m sure Yvette will be too.” The last part was a lie; he knew Yvette would not be fine.
”I’m sorry, Jacques. It must be so awful for you. I will always be here for you, you know that.”
“Thank you, dearest Honeysuckle. I know.” He took her hand and stood up. “Come on, let’s walk down to Alum Bay.”
They followed the path that led down towards the multi-coloured cliffs that formed the backdrop to the sands of the bay, and past the gun emplacements that defended the Solent.
“What will you do now, Jacques?”
“I will fly back to Normandy tonight. The Allied invasion will happen soon and there is still much to do. Now Yvette is gone, I am in charge of the Resistance operations in Normandy, which will cripple the German armed forces. It is important work, and I’m afraid the War will not stop to allow grieving hearts to mend. We are just the latest casualties in a long list of broken hearts.”
“What about Yvette?”
“She will recuperate here in England. How long that will take, or what she will do next? I do not know.” His heart went out once again to the woman he had left in the hospital. “It will appear callous, but I have to leave her, and I pray she will be alright.”
“Would you like me to go and visit her? As your friend, your little sister.” Honeysuckle was quite serious. She felt nothing but compassion for the woman she had never met, the woman who had taken her Jacques.
“I don’t know. At the moment in her present state of mind, I don’t think it would achieve anything. I really don’t know.”