Bomber

by Paul Dowswell

  Harry and Stearley were shown into the living room and stood there awkwardly as they overheard uneasy conversation in the kitchen. The couple were tight-lipped, not remotely like Madame and Monsieur Laruelle. They were obviously very unhappy about having the two Americans in their apartment.

  Natalie came into the room. She spoke to them quickly under her breath. ‘You will stay here one night only. Now, we need new tickets and permits.’ Then, without a further word, she left them.

  Natalie returned at 2 p.m. the next day, not before Harry and Stearley had spent an uncomfortable morning. No more was said about their fight, and Harry even thanked the lieutenant for saving him on the roof. But there was an unease between them now, a trust that had been broken.

  The couple they were staying with made it clear they had no food for them, but they did bring a change of clothes – rough workmen’s apparel. At least it was freshly laundered. The old lady beckoned for them to throw their old clothes in her laundry basket.

  ‘Today we make a short journey – to Le Mans from Gare Montparnasse,’ said Natalie. ‘On the train we must sit apart of course. When it is time to get off, I will stand up and check my hair in the mirror in the carriage, yes? You get off at the next stop, even if I don’t get off. It’s very important that you remember this.

  ‘And don’t for a second make any gesture or contact that would let someone know we are all travelling together. Sit opposite each other, not together. When one of you goes to sleep, then the other should stay awake. If you start talking in your sleep, you will give yourself away. So wake them, yes?’

  Harry wilted when he heard this. He was so tired he could have slept on a marble floor or in a puddle of water. Stearley looked exhausted too. He bet he’d pull rank if they discussed who would fall asleep first. Harry resolved to be sly and not even mention it. As soon as they sat down, then that would be it. Over and out.

  She fished into her bag and brought out two news-papers. ‘You can have one each. Read them throughout the journey. It’ll discourage any conversation from your fellow passengers.’ One paper was German, the other Dutch. It was a good move, unless someone Dutch or German was sitting next to you.

  Stearley took the German paper, which was brave. With so many German soldiers around, the chances of a German starting a conversation with you were far higher.

  As they prepared to leave, the atmosphere in the apartment lightened considerably. The old lady wished them ‘Bonne chance’ and pressed a paper bag into Natalie’s hands. Even the old man gave them a hearty handshake. Their relief was palpable.

  Out in the street they walked alone, in sight of each other. Harry hoped it was not too far to the station and tried his best not to look anxious and lost. Stearley was walking behind Natalie and Harry was appalled at one point to hear him wolf whistle at a small group of French girls, sitting in their fur coats, enjoying a coffee and cigarette outside a café.

  As they waited for their train in the towering station concourse, a sprightly young man in a smart suit came up to Harry and began to chat away. Harry froze. The language was not one he recognised. It was certainly not French or German. Then he realised the man was probably Dutch, and had assumed Harry was too, because of the newspaper he carried. As he talked, Harry wondered whether to whisper, ‘I’m American, go away!’ But in an instant he calculated that anyone this healthy and smart was almost certainly a Dutch collaborator, here in Paris to do business with the Nazis and their French supporters.

  Harry shook his head and waved the man away. A couple of German soldiers walked by, clearly taking an interest in what looked like the start of an argument, or even a fight. Harry felt himself go hot and cold with fear.

  Natalie rushed up to him. ‘Hendrick! Hendrick van Houten!!! Mon cher ami!!! Venez, vous avez le temps pour un café avant le départ de votre train?’

  With that she whisked him away to one of the cafés on the side of the concourse. She bought him a coffee and ten minutes later they were in the queue with Stearley, two or three people apart, waiting to board the train alongside hundreds of impatient passengers. Harry had begun to realise that big queues and impatient people were the fugitive’s friend. The platform inspectors, and the German sentries who watched over them, waved them through with only the slightest glance at their passes.

  If they were lucky, they would get to Le Mans by mid-evening. If not, it could be early the next morning. Either way, it was going to be a long night.

  CHAPTER 26

  Le Mans, November 8th, 1943

  Jean-Pierre, Natalie’s controller in the Resistance, had come down to Le Mans that very morning, shortly after meeting with her. There was work to do with the local Resistance – contacts to make after the last Nazi round-up of the Resistance cell there. Four of his friends here had recently been executed. And Jean-Pierre had messages to transmit to the Special Operation Executive back in England – the branch of the British Secret Service that worked closely with Resistance groups in occupied Europe. It was safer in Le Mans, he always felt. There were too many Nazi signal-tracking vans in Paris. He’d heard of friends there getting that ominous knocking at the door five minutes into a transmission. Things were slacker here.

  He had met the two Americans at that apartment in Paris, now compromised and unusable, but at least he had taught Stearley a lesson. He hoped it would make him behave more responsibly. He didn’t trust him though. He’d had similar trouble with a British officer a few months back. Nearly got two of his men caught when he started to chat up a woman in a café right by the Arc de Triomphe. Jean-Pierre was quite prepared to die ferrying these flyers back to England, but not for someone else’s foolishness.

  He tapped out the day’s news for London. The two flyers were safe and he was expecting them in Le Mans shortly, but it had been a close thing. One of them, the co-pilot, was causing no end of trouble. He was flirting with the courier and taking terrible risks to impress her. And he’d had a fight with another escaper. Immediate advice was required.

  The message came back from SOE almost instantly. Jean-Pierre flinched at its stark brutality.

  They were lucky with the train from Montparnasse. There were no long delays, and they pulled into the station at Le Mans around ten o’clock that evening.

  The place felt quite different from Paris. More relaxed. There were a few German guards at the station, but they seemed bored and took little time checking the passengers’ passes.

  Harry and Stearley followed Natalie down the dark streets. She walked for maybe twenty minutes into the centre, and they found themselves in a district of old timbered houses.

  Natalie unlocked a creaking door in a drab plaster-fronted terrace. When they caught up, she was waiting for them in the darkened hall.

  She beckoned them to follow her upstairs, where there was a small apartment on the top floor.

  ‘Two rooms – you can have one each. Wait here until I come to collect you.’

  Then she left without another word.

  Natalie returned in the dead of night. It had been a difficult journey, in which they had narrowly avoided a roadblock. She felt uneasy. On edge. Outside on the landing she could hear Stearley snoring but he stopped when the door to his room creaked open. She crept in, holding a single candle. He was in a deep sleep, a little smile playing around his lips, and she had to nudge him several times to fully wake him. When he opened his eyes, he looked surprised, delighted and then crestfallen in the space of an instant.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

  She put her finger to her lips. ‘Come with me,’ she whispered.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

  ‘I will tell you on the way,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait outside the door while you get dressed.’

  She stood on the landing, noting that the younger one in the other room was sleeping soundly. She could hear his gentle snoring. She wondered if the lieutenant was aware that something was afoot. He didn’t seem to be. She thought about what they were about to
do and her jaw tightened.

  She could hear him pouring water into the bedroom wash bowl and splashing his face. Then she heard the curtain rail creak. Perhaps he was getting suspicious – it was a good thing they had parked out of sight of the house.

  She was there outside and smiled briskly as he appeared. ‘Quick then,’ she said, and tiptoed down the rickety stairs. They went out the back of the house to where a Citroën Traction Avant saloon was waiting. She opened the rear passenger door. Stearley got in and Natalie sat in the front.

  ‘Hey, where’s Harry?’ he said.

  Natalie turned round. ‘Change of plan, Lieutenant. Best if you don’t know.’ She had rehearsed this line.

  ‘But he’s all right, isn’t he?’

  She nodded and said no more. It was impossible to see in the dark, but she sensed his unease, almost like an electrical current in the air.

  They had brought Georges with them, a tough young man who would be quite able to handle the lieutenant if he got difficult. Next to Natalie in the driving seat was Jean-Pierre, her controller. She wondered how long it would take for Stearley to recognise him. He had gone to the Paris apartment and punched him in the gut after the incident with the German soldier.

  She could feel herself getting angry even as she was reminded of it. She thought of her brother, Raymond, and her sister, Valérie, both murdered by the Gestapo. They held them for six weeks before they killed them. She was sure they had been tortured. Should she feel sorry for this américain? She could find a glimmer of pity. A lot of young people are foolish … but he should have known better, so she banished the thought from her head.

  They drove on in silence. It really was dark outside. No stars, no moon, no lights in the distance. The blackout was total. Natalie hoped Jean-Pierre knew the road well, otherwise they were going to end up wrapped around a tree.

  ‘So, where are we going?’ Stearley asked again. He sounded rattled now.

  Eventually Jean-Pierre spoke. ‘We are taking you to another safe house.’

  He said no more, but she could tell the lieutenant was getting more and more agitated. He was fidgeting and his breathing was increasingly loud.

  Stearley spoke again. ‘Look, if this is about me being a pain in the ass, then I’m sorry.’

  Natalie spoke, trying to sound as matter-of-fact as she could. ‘Really, monsieur, don’t trouble yourself about it.’

  Natalie exchanged a worried glance with Jean-Pierre, then noticed Stearley could see her in the rear-view mirror.

  An awful silence descended.

  They drove on a short while longer, then Jean-Pierre pulled the car over to the side of the road and stopped.

  ‘Get out,’ he snapped.

  ‘Where’s the safe house?’ Stearley was close to panic now. They were in the middle of nowhere. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’

  Georges had a gun; Natalie knew that. He would probably have to prod him in the ribs with it to get him out.

  ‘Get out of the car,’ Jean-Pierre said again.

  Natalie was out now, standing by the side of the road. They were parked by a copse of tall poplars. There was some light from the moon now, and she could see Stearley was barely able to stand.

  He turned to look back at Natalie, his eyes pleading, as if to say, ‘Can’t you get me out of this?’

  There was a terrible pause. Stearley looked blank, then terrified. His mouth was moving but he seemed to have lost the power of speech. For a moment he struggled free of their grip, but Georges and Jean-Pierre quickly grabbed him and dragged him towards the dense woodland. She could see one of Georges’s powerful hands clamped tight around Stearley’s mouth.

  Natalie could feel her legs beginning to tremble as she stood waiting by the car. Why was it taking so long?

  Then she heard a single muffled shot.

  A few minutes later Jean-Pierre and Georges returned, with Stearley’s dog tags. No one would know what happened to him. He would be posted as ‘missing, presumed dead’.

  In the car she held back her tears. She didn’t want Jean-Pierre and Georges to see she was upset. Before, she had been sure it had been the right thing to do. No one should be allowed to put the lives of the Resistance workers at risk like that. But now she felt remorse. Like them, the lieutenant was young, with his whole life ahead of him. The arrogance and folly of youth shouldn’t be a death sentence. But these were terrible times.

  CHAPTER 27

  November 9th, 1943

  Natalie woke Harry the next morning with the news that they would be travelling on to Bordeaux that day.

  ‘I have the tickets and travel permits. We leave in half an hour.’

  ‘I’ll go wake the lieutenant,’ he said.

  Natalie shook her head. ‘He’s gone, Harry.’

  ‘Gone? What do you mean?’

  She wouldn’t catch his eye. Then she said, ‘We decided to separate you. He was too much trouble.’

  ‘So what the hell’s happened to him?’

  ‘Lieutenant Stearley put our lives is danger. We warned him. He is on his own now,’ she said coldly.

  So it hadn’t been an idle warning – the Resistance people had been true to their word. Harry didn’t envy Stearley the task of finding his way through occupied France on his own. He might be in with a chance. His French was pretty good.

  They caught the train to Bordeaux later that afternoon. Harry and Natalie sat in the same carriage but separately. The journey was slow but uneventful and Natalie brought another newspaper for Harry to hide behind. This time it worked. No one engaged him in conversation. By midnight the whole carriage was asleep. Natalie had gone to sleep first.

  The train reached Bordeaux at eight the next morning, and they disembarked with hundreds of other passengers. Ahead, at the platform end, they could see a great queue building, and many German soldiers. It seemed today was a day for a very thorough inspection of train tickets and travel permits.

  Natalie seemed unperturbed and coolly walked into a platform-side café and Harry duly followed. She sat down at one end, and when he came in a few moments later she waved, calling him over in French. She ordered two coffees and indicated that Harry should ‘read’ his newspaper.

  When the coffees arrived, Harry noticed a small key on her saucer. She pushed the scrap of paper to him. Follow me into the corridor, it read.

  Harry nodded. He noticed a young Frenchman staring at them. He was joined a minute later by another man, who turned to look at them shortly after.

  Natalie got up to go, but fortunately neither of the men across the café paid her any more attention. Harry followed soon after.

  She was waiting in the corridor and quickly unlocked a side door next to the lavatories. It led straight out to an alley filled with dustbins, off a street running down the side of the station.

  ‘The usual procedure, monsieur,’ she whispered. They set off, Harry following Natalie at a discreet distance.

  It took them an hour to reach their destination – an ordinary house in an outlying suburb. They were welcomed by a young man who seemed entirely pleased to see them. He spoke only French and left soon after they arrived.

  ‘There are two guest rooms in the attic,’ Natalie told Harry. ‘We can go up there. If you hear any commotion, you’ll have to hide as best you can. Now we eat, and then upstairs, yes?’

  They were sitting in the dining room about to eat breakfast when the phone in the corner rang. Harry nearly jumped out of his skin. Natalie rushed to answer it. She turned pale and her rapidly spoken words finished abruptly – mid-sentence. She stood looking at the receiver aghast.

  ‘We have to go. Immediately,’ she said.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Harry said.

  Natalie shook her head. ‘This place is not safe.’

  They grabbed bags and left without so much as picking up any food from the table.

  ‘Whatever happens, don’t run. Nothing attracts suspicion like a running man,’ she said. She walked close to Harry, arm in arm
as if they were lovers for a few brief steps, and spoke under her breath. ‘There’s another safe house out in Pessac. It’s on the edge of town. We can get there in maybe an hour if we walk fast. I’ll walk ahead. You keep up.’

  Still walking together, wrapped up in the confusion of what had just happened, they turned a corner. Right ahead was a German roadblock. There were a few cars and a waiting crowd. Harry could already see a German soldier looking straight over at them. It was too late to turn round, and definitely too late to pretend that they weren’t together. ‘Keep walking,’ she whispered softly, her arm still in his. ‘We’re going to have to go through this.’

  The soldier beckoned for them to stand with a group of people selected to have their passes scrutinised in detail, while others were waved through. Harry felt his heart pounding in his chest. What if they started to speak to him? What if they asked him anything that wasn’t written on that identity card?

  Two officers were sitting in a staff car by the roadblock and were staring directly at him with undisguised hostility. They wore the insignia of the SS. Maybe they thought he looked like a Jew? He could feel his legs start to shake and realised he was beginning to sweat. He might as well have I AM AN AMERICAN JEW stamped on a placard around his neck.

  He glanced over to Natalie, who looked as calm and collected as ever.

  Salvation came from an unexpected quarter. Air-raid sirens started up and the German guard told them that the nearest shelter was three streets away and that all pedestrians should hurry there at once.

  Almost immediately the bombs started to fall – far away but enough to feel the blast in their ears. Harry looked up to see wave after wave of bombers almost overhead and coming in over the west, tiny flecks in the blue sky, with their wispy white contrails.

  A series of explosions came nearer and nearer, close enough now to make the earth tremble beneath their feet. A woman screamed and several dogs began to bark loudly. In the stillness after the first bomb detonations they could hear the steady buzz of aero-engines and the slow cascade of a collapsing building.