It had taken some time before Charlie had learned for certain, but as winter began, he confided to Marie that the Jacobs were no longer in the holding camp at Drancy. They’d been put on a train that would take them east, along with many others, including the brother of Léon Blum, the former prime minister. When did it happen and where were they sent? Marie had asked.
“September. To Auschwitz.”
The three de Cygnes had discussed for some time whether they should tell Laïla. In the end, no one wanted to.
“Let’s wait and see what happens,” said Marie.
The rescue of Laïla had one other, unforeseen effect. Charlie started worrying about his son.
Right at the start, when he had first suggested to Louise that she might pass on information about her German customers, he had realized that there was a risk. Like many operatives, she had taken a code name. “Let them call me Corinne,” she had said. But in the early months, the sort of material she had been able to give him, though useful, was not sensitive. He knew all the officers who came to her establishment, their duties, and sometimes more. It was all excellent background for the future, and he passed it on to Colonel Rémy’s network. Occasionally she had come up with something which could be used locally—for attacks on Germans, or the sabotage of a goods train here and there. This information he passed on to Max Le Sourd and his boys. He did not think any of this information could have been traced to her.
In hiding a Jewish child, however, Louise had crossed a line. Had she been discovered, she would have been arrested. And what would have happened to little Esmé then? Would he have been able to claim him? Perhaps. But doing so, at such a moment, would have invited suspicion. Sooner or later, Louise might place herself in danger again. Despite her earlier insistence on keeping Esmé all to herself, Charlie felt he had to challenge her.
“Don’t you think it’s time we told my father he has a grandson, and sent Esmé down to the château where he would be safe?” he suggested. But she still wouldn’t hear of it.
“I’m not giving away my child,” she told him. “Never.” And no arguments, however reasonable, would sway her.
Meanwhile, very gradually, news came through that brought hope. Soon after the rescue of little Laïla, a brave Canadian and British force attacked the coastal town of Dieppe in northern France. The attack was a disaster, yet Charlie took comfort from it for two reasons.
“In the first place,” he remarked to his father, “it proves that the Allies can strike back and rescue France. And secondly, the fact that the hidden German gun emplacements caught them unawares at Dieppe proves to Churchill and de Gaulle that the French Resistance, not just the Free French Forces outside the country, but the fellows here on the ground will be critical to their success.”
In the east, as the weeks went by, word came that the Germans were held at Stalingrad. Then in November, from North Africa, came the wonderful news that Montgomery had smashed the German Afrika Korps at El Alamein, and chased them all the way back to Tunisia. In the Pacific, the Americans had already decisively defeated the Japanese fleet at Midway back in June. By the end of 1942, therefore, on every major front, there seemed to be signs that the tide of war could be turning.
In Paris, Charlie had plenty to occupy his mind. The Resistance movement was growing. In the southern Vichy zone, people were referring to the Resistance as the Maquis—since that was the wild bush terrain in the mountains where the guerrilla groups were forming—and soon Resistance fighters all over France were being called maquisards. But what really mattered now, Charlie thought, was that they were being properly organized.
In the spring of 1943, soon after the joyful news that the Germans had finally surrendered at Stalingrad, another important development occurred.
“There’s been a big meeting in Paris,” Charlie told his father. “De Gaulle’s right-hand man, Jean Moulin, was there. People came from all over France. They’ve coordinated all the Resistance networks, and they’ve pledged allegiance to de Gaulle.” He smiled. “When, eventually, the Allies come to rescue France, we shall have an entire Resistance army ready to help them.” He grinned. “You will be glad to know that the network set up by Colonel Rémy took the name the Confrérie Notre-Dame. As good Catholics, we place ourselves under the protection of the Virgin.”
His father smiled.
“I shall pray to the Blessed Virgin to keep watch over you when you are out with our communist friends as well,” he remarked.
“Please do, Father.”
Charlie was always grateful that Max Le Sourd let him take part in his operations. He hated to be doing nothing, and the communist Resistance didn’t mind accepting help from any political quarter.
“I’ve made you an honorary communist,” Max had told him wryly.
Max’s men were a loose-knit group, drawn from several parts of the city. Charlie never knew exactly how many men there were. There were the Dalou boys from up on Montmartre. Sometimes old Thomas Gascon came out with them, especially if there was any work that required dismantling bridges or railway couplings. Once or twice he’d brought his brother, Luc.
Twice, agent Corinne had provided information that had led to action. She had heard of a troop train coming in from Reims, and Max and his group had taken part in a successful attack on it. Another such tip had led, through Colonel Rémy’s network, to a train being bombed by British planes.
Charlie had taken part in attacks on guard posts, and a successful raid on an explosives store. But by the summer of 1943, Max and his men had been ordered to hold back a bit.
“We don’t want to lose you just now,” Max was told. Radio operators were getting caught all the time because the Germans could track their signals. The large and vicious German reprisals on whole communities where outrages occurred might be having some effect. “What we need is for you to build up a larger force to prepare for the really big operations in the future,” they promised him.
For it wasn’t as if Paris was short of Resistance activity. The group that the Germans feared most was led by a poet.
“They say that poets and intellectuals are the best terrorists,” Roland had remarked to his son. “I don’t know why.”
And certainly there was no one better than the poet Manouchian.
He was Armenian. A few of his group were French, but most were Polish, Armenian, Hungarian, Italian or Spanish, and half of those Jewish. By the late spring of 1943, he and his group had swung into a frenzy of action. All through that summer and into the autumn, the Germans in Paris had been terrorized by Manouchian. Once, thanks to a tip from Louise, Roland had been able to get some information to Manouchian that allowed him to take out one of the most senior Wehrmacht officers in France.
It was fascinating to see the nervousness of German officers and men in the street, after that. Now they know what it feels like to be terrorized, Charlie thought. Anything that was bad for German morale.
Yet, for all these hopeful signs for the future, Charlie’s daily life was gradually getting more restricted.
Food had been rationed since early in the occupation, but wood for fuel was hard to find now, and legally one needed a permit to buy it. The cold winters were bleak for Parisians, therefore. And by the summer of 1943, it was almost impossible even for Charlie to get fuel for his car. He had to take a train to reach the château.
Down in the south in the Vichy zone, a force of French-grown Gestapo, the Milice, seemed to be everywhere, eager to arrest enemies of the regime. There had been betrayals within the Resistance, too. Once, when he and Max’s men were meeting a couple of new recruits, brave Spanish boys, they found the Germans waiting for them. They’d lost both recruits. They decided in the end that a careless word from one of the recruits might have tipped the Germans off. But one could never be quite sure. “It’s an uncomfortable feeling,” Charlie confessed to Max, who nodded.
“It’s the worst part of the job,” he said.
And then, in November, the terrible blow had
fallen. Manouchian and his group were arrested. Was it treachery, Charlie wondered?
“No,” said Max. “Just good police legwork. The Germans know the French police will always be able to do better than they can. After all, they’re French, they know the people and the territory. Their special brigade’s been tailing a lot of people they suspected. In the end, if you do that long enough, you discover patterns. And they did.” He looked grim. “They’ll all be shot, of course, but not before they’ve been tortured for information. Let’s hope they don’t give away too much.”
It was this salutary reminder that caused Charlie to go to see Louise the following day and beg her to let little Esmé stay with his parents.
“We’re neither of us safe now, you and I,” he pointed out. “For the sake of the child, I beg you.”
But still she wouldn’t budge. Christmas passed. As the new year of 1944 began, he pressed her again. To no avail.
By the start of February 1944, Luc Gascon was getting worried, and with good reason.
When he’d started working with Schmid, the Allied threats to Germany’s grip on Europe had been so distant they could almost be discounted: trumpets unheard, over the horizon.
And so Luc had been able to live the way he’d always preferred, never pinned down, the fixer who was friends with everybody, the wheeler-dealer in the street who balanced risk, operating in the shadowy territory between German masters and French Resistance men, taking profit where he could. But even the cat who walks alone can find fear in the alley.
For gradually, month after month, the gathering Allies had been advancing until they had appeared on the horizon, as Hitler’s armies were slowly beaten back—worn down in Russia the year before, kicked out of Africa, and now the Italian army had surrendered, taking heavy losses in Italy as the Allies advanced, slowly but inexorably, northward toward Rome.
Increasingly Hitler looked like a man in a huge trap. He was still mightily dangerous. But as Luc Gascon calculated the odds, the landscape of his own, personal world looked very different.
What would happen, if and when the Germans lost?
In Paris, he suspected, the revenge on those who had cooperated with them would be unpleasant.
Did anyone guess about his cooperation with Schmid? Luc didn’t think so. But who knew what there might be in the German files? Or who might guess? Or who might talk? He needed to put more distance between himself and the Gestapo man.
At the same time, as things got worse for them, the Germans would be getting jumpy. Being an informer is not a healthy occupation. Schmid probably didn’t trust him either.
It was with these worries in his mind that, on a cold February day, Luc went to the avenue Foch for his usual meeting.
But he found the Gestapo man rather cheerful.
“Have you heard the news, my dear Gascon?” he asked. And seeing Luc uncertain: “Those Manouchian gangsters have just been sentenced, an hour ago.”
“Ah.”
“They will all be shot. At once. Except the woman. She will be handed over to you French. Women are not shot in the Reich.”
“What will happen to her, then?”
“She will be beheaded.” Schmid seemed to find that quite amusing. “Which would you prefer, to be shot or beheaded?”
“Shot, I think.”
“Perhaps you will get your wish.” Schmid laughed at this too, watching Luc as he laughed. “Are you loyal, Gascon, or are you a double agent?”
“My information has been correct. I gave you Jacob. And I gave you those two Spanish lads.”
Two unfortunate Spanish communists, coming to a meeting with the friends of Thomas and the Dalou boys. He’d picked his spot carefully where he knew at least one of the Dalou boys would be watching. The shots that rang out had cut down the two Spaniards at once. He’d asked Schmid to make sure that some shots came in his direction, so that it looked as if he were a target too. Two shots whizzed past him, one right between his feet, the other actually grazing his cap. He suspected that Schmid had ordered this for his private amusement. But it seemed to have kept the suspicion off him, as he’d run down an alley and shown his cap to his brother and his friends.
“True.” Schmid stared at him. “You have done well, Gascon. But not quite enough to convince me. So I am giving you another task to prove your loyalty.” He looked down at a piece of paper. “During a recent interrogation, a name came up. A person who is well connected and who passes information. The name appeared in the files once before, but that is all.” He looked pensive. “A woman’s name. Of course, it may be a man using a female name as his alias, but I suspect it’s a woman. Now if you can find out who this is, I would pay you well, Gascon. I might even trust you.”
“Just a name? Nothing else?”
“She has access to people in high places.”
“What name?”
“Corinne.”
The name meant nothing to Luc. Maybe he could find something out. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
But as he left, he reflected bleakly: he might want to put distance between himself and the Gestapo man, but it was not going to be so easy to do.
On a misty day in early April, no one would have thought anything of the two old men engaged in a game of boules in the little square on Montmartre. One was tall, one short, and neither of them could have been under seventy-five.
After finishing their game, they enjoyed a coffee together and a little cognac. Another man joined them. It seemed he was the tall man’s son, who perhaps had come to take his father home.
All three men made their way slowly across to Sacré Coeur basilica and stood in front of it gazing over the city. The mist was lifting. The gray bulk of Notre Dame, like a stern old ark moored in the Seine, loomed reassuringly in the distance. Across to the right, some miles away, the Eiffel Tower rose gracefully into the sky, as though she were the guardian of the city’s spirit. The three men stared at it.
“They still haven’t fixed the cables,” Thomas Gascon remarked with satisfaction. He nodded. “I’ll go up and attach the Tricolor to the top of it before long.”
Nobody contradicted him.
Max Le Sourd looked at the two old men affectionately. Despite their age, they were both useful. His father’s work on Le Populaire had helped drive the illegal paper’s circulation to amazing heights. As for Thomas, the indefatigable old man had insisted on coming on sabotage missions whenever it had been physically possible. It was he who had pointed out that instead of blowing up railway lines with explosives, it was far more effective to take the plates off and pry the rails apart where they were joined. He’d invented a simple way of doing it, and it had worked brilliantly.
But now, at last, the day of which they’d all been dreaming was coming. No one knew the day exactly—unless General Eisenhower did—and no one knew the place. But it was coming soon. A huge invasion of Allied troops from the island of Britain. Liberation.
All over France, the networks so long prepared were getting ready. A massive program of disruption would take place. German troops would find their trains unable to move, electric wires would be down, while a huge bombing of every kind of military target would come from the air. And in Paris, barricades, mayhem, guerrilla warfare.
And something else.
“The timing will be critical,” Max said quietly. “As the Germans are driven out, we shall need a fait accompli, but it can be done.”
“A commune. The workers will take over Paris.” His father smiled.
The National Council of the Resistance had already agreed, in mid-March, that the new French state would be a very different place from the France before the war. The workers and unions would be given power. Women should have equal rights, welfare be hugely increased.
The commune was only a step further, a way to make sure that, this time, the revolution was fixed immutably in place.
“I like it,” said old Thomas.
“But is the FTP solid for this?” Le Sourd inquired. Th
e Franc-Tireurs et Partisans, the communist resistance, Max’s boys. In the last two years, it was they who had taken the lead in most of the guerrilla attacks on Germans. Their numbers were large.
“Moscow is against our plan,” Max said. “If Stalin wanted to please Hitler before, now he wants to please Churchill. Who knows? But I don’t give a damn. We’ll have a commune.”
He paused. There was just one other subject he had to bring up. It was awkward.
“The numbers in the Resistance are swelling dramatically,” he remarked.
“Naturally,” said his father. “People can see which way the wind’s blowing. The rats will start leaving the sinking German ship.”
“True,” Max continued. “And the Germans are making it worse for themselves. They’re so short of manpower that they’re trying to force the boys in the countryside into uniform to fight for them. Sooner than get caught in that trap, the country boys are running off into the woods to join the partisans.”
“That’s good,” said old Thomas.
“Yes,” Max agreed, “but there’s a danger. We never quite know what we’re getting. It’s easier for the Germans to plant spies and stooges in the Resistance now. We need to be very careful about who has information.” He had come to the point now. He glanced at his father.
The older Le Sourd took over. Taking Thomas gently by the arm, he said softly: “Are you sure about your brother, Luc?”
It was an instinct. Just a degree of uncertainty about his character. The Dalou boys didn’t trust him. There had been something not quite right, Max had always felt, about the way those two Spanish lads had been killed and Luc had escaped. Nothing one could pin down. But a concern …
“He’s all right,” said Thomas.
But he said it without the conviction for which Max was listening. Max knew he would trust old Thomas with his life. No question. But did Thomas feel the same way about his own brother? Max suspected he did not.
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